Liberating Our Health: Ending the Harms of Pretrial Incarceration and Money Bail

By Human Impact Partners

Around 482,000 people in the US are incarcerated before they have even been convicted of the charges against them — and 90% remain incarcerated simply because they can’t afford to pay the bail amount set for them.

While money bail is theoretically meant to ensure that people return to court for their trial, research in places that have already ended the practice of setting money bail shows that 9 out of 10 people still return to court on their own.

Because of the inequitable application of policies that criminalize activities associated with poverty and other forms of marginalization, pretrial incarceration disproportionately impacts people who are historically and structurally marginalized. People who are undocumented also face particular harm due to the interconnected nature of the systems of incarceration and immigration enforcement.

Oakland, CA: Human Impact Partners, 2020. 52p.