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Op-ed: Why we should abolish bail

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Community bonds
Goldberg Bail Bonds has been in business in Minnesota for 100 years.
Nikki Tundel | MPR Photo file

If America wants to reduce jail populations, it's time to abolish bail, argues Maya Schenwar, editor-in-chief of Truthout, in a New York Times piece.

The current system keeps poor people of color in jail while they wait for trial, Schenwar wrote:

Usually, it is because they cannot afford bail. According to a 2011 report by the city's Independent Budget Office, 79 percent of pretrial detainees were sent to Rikers because they couldn't post bail right away.

This is a national problem. Across the United States, most of the people incarcerated in local jails have not been convicted of a crime but are awaiting trial. And most of those are waiting in jail not because of any specific risk they have been deemed to pose, but because they can't pay their bail.

In other words, we are locking people up for being poor. This is unjust. We should abolish monetary bail outright.

Schenwar joins MPR News' Kerri Miller to talk about bail and America's overcrowded jails.