Erin Leigh George
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erinleighgeorge.bsky.social
Erin Leigh George
@erinleighgeorge.bsky.social
37 followers 92 following 2 posts
Campaigner. Organizer. Social worker.
National Policy Director: The Bail Project
Proud alum CleanSlate_Init, Citizen Action NY, JustLeadershipUSA
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Reposted by Erin Leigh George
joshuabhoe.bsky.social
But the idea here is important

I know most of us think that NOBODY will ever arrest ME or anyone that I care about

But that is NOT true

We arrest and incarcerate a MILLION people or more annually, who can't afford bail

www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6...
The United States likely detains millions of people each year for inability to post modest bail. There are approximately eleven million annual admissions into local jails.1 Many of those admitted remain jailed pending trial. At midyear 2014, there were an estimated 467,500 people awaiting trial in local jails, up from 349,800 at the same point in 2000 and 298,100 in 1996.2 Available evidence suggests that the large majority of pretrial detainees are detained because they cannot afford their bail, which is often a few thousand dollars or less.3
September 9, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Erin Leigh George
joshuabhoe.bsky.social
3. In this country, we are supposed to believe that people are innocent until proven guilty

Heck, I did a whole episode of my podcast on this one (back when I used to host a podcast)

decarcerationnation.com/86-tracey-me...
86 Tracey Meares and Arthur Rizer - Decarceration Nation
Joshua B. Hoe interviews Tracey Meares and Arthur Rizer about their paper "The Radical Notion of the Presumption of Innocence" during Episode 86
decarcerationnation.com
September 9, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Erin Leigh George
joshuabhoe.bsky.social
2. There is NO public safety difference between cash bail and "cashless bail"

Yup, you hear a lot of nonsense, but most studies suggest that reform is either POSITIVE or had no impact on public safety

This one is from my friend @amescg.bsky.social

www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
Data from 33 cities across the country discredits the claim that bail reform causes crime to increase
September 9, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Reposted by Erin Leigh George
joshuabhoe.bsky.social
Okay, so before we move on, two critical points so far

* Pretrial incarceration CAUSES more crime than cash bail PREVENTS

* You evaluate policies against each other, not against themselves
September 9, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Erin Leigh George
joshuabhoe.bsky.social
More evidence

And remember, the important question is NOT the simple one (did people commit crimes upon pretrial release), the IMPORTANT question is DID MORE PEOPLE COMMIT MORE CRIMES AFTER REFORM THAN THEY DID BEFORE

chansman.github.io/GHF_Bail.pdf
In the United States, roughly 450,000 people are detained awaiting trial on any given day, typically because they have not posted bail. Using a large sample of criminal cases in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, we analyze the consequences of the money bail system by exploiting the variation in bail-setting tendencies among randomly assigned bail judges. Our estimates suggest that the assignment of money bail leads to a 12 percent increase in the likelihood of conviction and a 6–9 percent increase in recidivism. Our results highlight the importance of credit constraints in shaping defendant outcomes and point to important fairness considerations in the institutional design of the American money bail system.
September 9, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Erin Leigh George
joshuabhoe.bsky.social
Because this is such an underdiscussed part of the bail debate and so important, I am going to include more studies concluding that pretrial incarceration INCREASES CRIME

Here is another study

www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6...
Abstract. In misdemeanor cases, pretrial detention poses a particular problem because it may induce innocent defendants to plead guilty in order to exit jail, potentially creating widespread error in case adjudication. While practitioners have long recognized this possibility, empirical evidence on the downstream impacts of pretrial detention on misdemeanor defendants and their cases remains limited. This Article uses detailed data on hundreds of thousands of misdemeanor cases resolved in Harris County, Texas—the thirdlargest county in the United States—to measure the effects of pretrial detention on case outcomes and future crime. We find that detained defendants are 25% more likely than similarly situated releasees to plead guilty, are 43% more likely to be sentenced to jail, and receive jail sentences that are more than twice as long on average. Furthermore, those detained pretrial are more likely to commit future crimes, which suggests that detention may have a criminogenic effect. These differences persist even after fully controlling for the initial bail amount, offense, demographic information, and criminal history characteristics. Use of more limited sets of controls, as in prior research, overstates the adverse impacts of detention. A quasi-experimental analysis based on case timing confirms that these differences likely reflect the causal effect of detention. These results raise important constitutional questions and suggest that Harris County could save millions of dollars per year, increase public safety, and reduce wrongful convictions with better pretrial release policy.
September 9, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by Erin Leigh George
joshuabhoe.bsky.social
1. Pretrial incarceration generates CRIME....it generates MORE crime than bail prevents

There are two parts of this discussion: A) How BAIL is handled, and B) What happens when you detain people pretrial

YOU HAVE TO COMPARE BOTH

www.brookings.edu/articles/a-b...
The consequences of pretrial detention are difficult to reconcile given that many of those detained pretrial are charged with offenses that, were they to be found guilty, would be unlikely to result in incarcerative sentences. Research suggests that pretrial detention is linked to substantially higher recidivism rates post sentencing—suggesting that even if pretrial detention reduces some criminal activity during the pretrial period this is more than offset by much higher recidivism rates after individuals serve their sentences. Further, pretrial detention removes individuals presumed innocent from their families and communities—often resulting in the loss of employment and housing, interrupted treatment, and, in some cases, the loss of child custody. Court imposed fines and fees are passed without making income-based adjustments and failure to pay such fines and fees can result in revocation of one’s driver’s license and further incarceration.
September 9, 2025 at 6:02 PM