This publish was initially printed on The Washington Informer
By Stacy M. Brown
President Donald Trump, convicted on 34 felony counts, has remained free with the very product of America’s money bail system that, for many years, has spared rich defendants from jail, whereas trapping the poor behind bars.
Now, he’s working to finish cashless bail reforms throughout the nation.
On Monday, Trump signed an govt order threatening to strip federal funding from states and cities that refuse to implement money bail. A separate directive will permit Washington, D.C. defendants to be charged below federal statutes to keep away from town’s long-standing bail reforms.
“As president, I’ll require commonsense insurance policies that defend People’ security and well-being by incarcerating people who’re identified threats,” the president wrote in an govt order on Aug. 25 “It’s due to this fact the coverage of my administration that Federal insurance policies and sources shouldn’t be used to assist jurisdictions with cashless bail insurance policies, to the utmost extent permitted by legislation.”
Critics word the contradiction between the president’s order and previous is unmistakable.
In 2024, Trump stood trial for falsifying enterprise information as a part of a scheme to bury damaging info earlier than the 2016 election. Jurors convicted him on 34 felonies after listening to from 22 witnesses and reviewing almost 300 reveals. Decide Juan Merchan issued an unconditional discharge — no jail time, no fines, no probation — 10 days earlier than Trump was sworn in once more as president.
For bizarre People, the end result would have been very totally different. The U.S. Fee on Civil Rights discovered that greater than 60% of pretrial detainees are jailed solely as a result of they can’t afford bail, and the burden falls disproportionately on Black and Latino communities.
“These with belongings accused of the identical or related crimes have the keys to the jailhouse door. They’ve their wallets,” Commissioner David Kladney mentioned.
But Trump has turned the problem right into a rallying cry. At a press convention, he claimed, “Any person murders anyone and so they’re out on no money bail earlier than the day is out.”
FactCheck.org decided the assertion was false, mentioning that states with cashless bail exclude violent felonies like homicide and that such releases are exceedingly uncommon. In Illinois, the place the Pretrial Equity Act eradicated money bail in 2023, murders and robberies have declined, with Chicago reporting a 37 p.c drop in homicides and a 36% drop in robberies in comparison with 2023.
Trump’s personal survival by the felony courts reveals the very inequity bail reform was designed to repair: The rich purchase their approach to freedom, whereas the poor wait in jail.
“Yet one more racist and classiest assault on Black and poor communities,” social media person Daniel Redeffer wrote on X, previously often known as Twitter.”When will People wake… as much as the truth that we’re at conflict with our personal authorities?”
The publish Trump a Beneficiary of Money Bail System He Now Desires to Destroy appeared first on The Washington Informer.
