When bail is out of defendant’s reach, other costs mount, By Shaila Dewan, June 10, 2015, New York Times: “Dominick Torrence, who has lived in this city all his life, has a long rap sheet for dealing drugs but no history of violence. So when he was charged with disorderly conduct and rioting on April 28, a night of unrest after Freddie Gray was fatally injured in police custody, he was shocked to learn the amount he would need to make bail: $250,000, the same amount as two of the officers facing charges over Mr. Gray’s death. Although a bail bondsman would charge only a fraction of that, normally 10 percent, for many defendants $25,000 is as impossible a sum as $250,000. ‘That’s something you get for murder or attempted murder,’ Mr. Torrence, 29, said from Baltimore Central Booking. ‘You’re telling me I have to take food out of my kid’s mouth so I can get out of jail.’ He spent a month in jail on charges that would later be dropped…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty