From "Resetting Bail—the Price of Justice in New York City"
Wednesday, May 11, 2016 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
New York City is taking a hard look at our bail system at a time when there is new energy for reform: in the last year, bail has been taken up in late-night comedy sketches from John Oliver, impassioned speeches by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, a dedicated reality TV show on bail bondsmen in New York City, and in-depth investigative reporting by the news and other media.
Join the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and the Vera Institute of Justice in an engaging discussion about the way our City’s bail system works, strategies for making it more fair and effective, and the pioneering practices already in place to inspire enduring change.
A First Look
New York’s recent bail reform law, which was passed in April 2019 and amended on July 2, 2020, was expected to reduce the footprint of jail incarceration by limiting the use of money bail. The new law mandated pretrial release for the vast majority of nonviolent charges and required that judges consider a person’s ability to pay bail. A comprehensi ...
A correctional officer watches as people sit for lunch at the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility in Mineville, New York. Photo by AP Photo/Mike Groll. Last month, New York closed six upstate prisons, each of which had been operating well under capacity. Collectively, the now-closed facilities filled just 43.7 percent of their availabl ...
When COVID-19 struck, many jails and prisons were poorly equipped to provide even basic medical care. Yet, the onset of the pandemic found the country’s mass incarceration system shamefully well-equipped with punitive solitary confinement cells. As it became clear that incarcerated people were in grave danger, public health experts recommended dec ...
