KEEPING PEOPLE IN JAIL IS EXPENSIVE -- Dearborn County Public Forum

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Subject: KEEPING PEOPLE IN JAIL IS EXPENSIVE

Author:
James L. Burke

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Date Posted: 22:35:15 05/01/12 Tue

The following are excepts from BAIL IS BUSTED: HOW JAIL REALLY WORKS, by Nick Pinto (Village Voice/The New York Times April 25, 2012)

....It is a central tenet of American justice that as arrests enter the court system, people are innocent until they are proved guilty. But the open secret of criminal courts is that there simply aren't enough judges, prosecutors, and hours in the day to give each of these defendants a fair chance to prove their innocence, to challenge the evidence against them, and to mount a defense.

If even a fraction of those presumed innocent fought their cases in court, the system would grind to a halt. To keep things moving, judges and prosecutors need defendants to plead guilty to something as early in the process as possible. And the single most powerful tool to extract a guilty plea is the threat of bail.

Bail can only legitimately be set for one reason: to ensure that a defendant will return to court for his or her next hearing. But everyone who works in criminal justice knows that's not what's going on at all....

To read the article in its entirety go to:
www.villagevoice.com/2012-04-25/news/bail-is-busted-new-york-jail

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: KEEPING PEOPLE IN JAIL IS EXPENSIVE	why?	11:00:45 05/04/12 Fri
Re: KEEPING PEOPLE IN JAIL IS EXPENSIVE -- James L. Burke, 23:00:53 05/04/12 Fri Re: KEEPING PEOPLE IN JAIL IS EXPENSIVE -- voter, 13:42:33 05/05/12 Sat Re: KEEPING PEOPLE IN JAIL IS EXPENSIVE -- James L. Burke, 17:07:23 05/05/12 Sat