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sundin13 on 02 December 2021
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Jaicee said:
sundin13 said:

First of all, these are not necessarily "criminals" we are talking about. These people have not been convicted, they have been accused. It is somewhat alarming how easily people are willing to call these people criminals and say we need to lock them up for months or years without a trial.

But also, if you believe this, should we not have a system designed around harm prevention and not around money? If we truly believe that an individual is dangerous, why would we say "Okay, if you can pay us we'll let you out"? That seems nonsensical. Not only does it mean that rich dangerous people can just walk free, like you mentioned, but it also means that poor dangerous people can walk free if they make an agreement with a bail bondsman (which is an exploitative private system leeching off of the injustices of cash bail). 

The US doesn't need cash bail. It needs to stop using our criminal justice system to enrich private enterprises and start using it to prevent harm. I understand the fear of eliminating cash bail, and I'm sure you will hear the media make a lot of noise about what individuals who commit crimes waiting for trials, but I personally can't stomach these injustices and the damage that this system does on the basis of an unproven fear.

I was not attempting to presume anyone's guilt or innocence per se, but to simply assess that many people who quite frankly are clearly guilty and pose an obvious danger to those around them wind up free as a result of terminating the cash-bail system and we can plainly see the real-world results in those communities that have already done so. They're not good. The results are, as you might expect, more crime, including more violent crime. That is the bottom line here from my perspective.

Harm prevention is of course a great thing, but let's be serious here. The mindset too many progressives embrace when it comes to criminal justice is akin to arguing vis-a-vis health care that we could prevent the need for hospitals if we just closed them all and redistributed their funds into preventative health care. You know that's not how that works!

Again, if they are "clearly guilty" and "pose an obvious danger", why in the fuck would we let them free if they paid us enough? That is just garbage policy and frankly, it is a weak crutch for supporting cash bail. 

Further "you can plainly see the real world results", isn't really true. There is little academic evidence of this claim. 

As for your assertion of the "progressive mindset", I honestly don't care about your opinion on the progressive bogeyman and the fact that you think that is an argument here is embarrassing.