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Bail Fund Aims to Free Poor Defendants
After a state law cleared a legal obstacle, Brooklyn public defenders are forming a fund to pay low-level bails that keep a surprising number of defendants behind bars before trial—with devastating effects on work, families and their criminal cases.
Chapter 1: The Punishing Price of NYC's Bail System
Many people in New York City's jails today are behind bars only because they cannot afford the very low bail set in their minor criminal cases. This raises concerns about cost and justice.
Chapter 2: Process and Punishment in Arraignment Courts
Crucial decisions in the city's justice system are made under difficult circumstances—at overcrowded arraignment courts where judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers operate with little information and scarce time.
Chapter 3: Anatomy of The Bail Decision
Who goes free and who gets bail? Myriad factors affect this most crucial decision in the criminal justice process.
Chapter 4: Judgment Calls—Judges and Bail
For the people behind the bench in New York City courtrooms, the bail decision comes loaded with technical nuance and practical consequences.
Chapter 5: No Escape From The Politics Of Bail
Bail does serve a purpose: preventing defendants from skipping court. But in legislatures and courthouses, there's political pressure to also use it to punish.
Chapter 6: Bail, Truth and Consequences
The decision to impose financial bail can have an impact on the city's jail costs, the ability of the court system to establish truth and an individual's work, family, housing and life.
Chapter 7: Room for Reform? Bail and its Alternatives
Other cities have employed new methods of pre-trial monitoring to avoid setting financial bail. Given the scale of the city's criminal justice system, would such an approach deliver both public safety and individual justice in New York?
Stung By Sam: .44-Caliber Bail Reform
The city's bail system wasn't the same after one defendant named David Berkowitz came through a Brooklyn courthouse.
Lengthy Trial: A Brief History of Bail
From the Bible to the Tupac Shakur, history and pop culture are littered with references to the curious process of paying for freedom.
Ripped from Arraignments: Bail ‘Law & Order' Style
The long-running cops-and-courtrooms drama often brings viewers into the bail hearing.
Clang for a Buck: The Curious Case of Dollar Bails
It's rare, but it happens: A person gets arrested on multiple charges, has $1 bail set on one, clears the other counts up, but remains in jail for lack of a solitary greenback.
Overdue Finds: The NYPD's Warrants Section
There are somewhere between 160,000 and 1.5 million open warrants in the five boroughs. They represent the caseload of the NYPD's Warrants Section.
The Business of Bail: The City's Bail Agents Sing the Blues
When a judge opts not to release a defendant and sets bail that's higher than he can pay in cash, a commercial bail bond agent decides, in effect, whether the guy stays in or goes free.
"Prisoner's Dilemma" looks at New York City's bail system and investigates why city jails are populated with pre-trial detainees who mostly can't afford bail.
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New York's Top Judge Echoes Our 2007 Bail Investigation - Jarrett Murphy
Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman called for reforms of the bail system, including limiting the use of financial bail to detain defendants in non-violent cases.
EVENTS
A Place at the Table
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
6:00pm -
Word for Word: Dan Savage
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Justice For All: Appleseed at 20
Thursday, June 20, 2013
6:00p - 9:00p
MULTIMEDIA
Space Available: Jail Capacity in New York City
From City Limits' 2007 investigation of the bail system: After rising for years, the usage of jail space in the city has dropped.
Wanted, Late and Alive: Outstanding Warrants in New York City
From City Limits' 2007 investigation of the bail system: Outstanding warrants reflect, in part, cases where people skipped court, with or without bail.
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CITY LIMITS EVENTS
Defining Brooklyn Launch
City Limits celebrates the launch of its March 2011 issue: Defining Brooklyn.The 35th Anniversary Celebration
City Limits celebrates its 35th Anniversary at BMCC in Tribeca.Brooklyn Bureau Launch
The Brooklyn Bureau launch as part of Social Media Week 2012.Tackling Poverty
The Tackling Poverty Series at Galapagos Art Space in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn.Tackling Poverty (Manhattan)
City Limits & the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness
