How bail punishes the poor for their poverty
Most of the controversy over crime and punishment in the United States has focused on how many people are in prison. You don't hear as much about jails, and yet for most Americans the local jail is where they're likely to experience the justice system.
Far more Americans go to jail in a given year than to prison, although most of them have not been convicted of any crime. Then there are those with mental illnesses who simply don't have other options. And increasingly, jail has become a de facto punishment for poverty, as the poor are forced to remain there in lieu of bail while awaiting trial.
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"What's going on with the jail population doesn't get a lot of attention relative to prison incarceration," said Jesse Jannetta, a researcher at the Urban Institute.
Convicts are sent to prison to serve their sentences, but people generally go to jail for short periods while awaiting a hearing or a trial. Alongside the explosion of the population in prison over the past two decades, the number of people spending time in jail has also increased drastically, according to a study published by the Vera Institute of Justice this we
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/13/how-bail-punishes-the-poor-for-their-poverty/