How Cash Bail Negatively Affects the United States
Abstract
Cash bail has been prevalent within the bail system.1 Cash bail is a system that requires a payment order to be released pretrial, if the person in question is granted the option of bail.2 When the person returns to court for the trial, the court will immediately reimburse the payment that was made.3 However, with the current system, unless the person can come up with the money for the cash bail, they are imprisoned until the trial or until they can procure money for payment. The result of the cash bail system has been that incarceration rates have skyrocketed, filling jails with technically innocent people who have been accused of crimes from misdemeanors to felonies.4
