Op-Ed: Stop using cash bail to separate mothers from their children (via latimesopinion)
Instead, building alternatives to incarceration has been left to community groups. In the Bay Area, for example, Silicon Valley De-Bug operates the Community Release Project through which organizers — not law enforcement — offer pretrial support for people arrested, including transportation to court, child care during court dates and help navigating public-benefit bureaucracies to connect people to services.
For the last five years, Essie Justice Group, a California-based organization of women with incarcerated loved ones, has similarly offered a community-based alternative. Together with the National Bail Out Collective, Essie bails out Black mothers who cannot afford their release. These annual “Black Mama’s Bail Out” events show how Black women are oftenby pretrial detention, where they are dramatically overrepresented in custody and serve the longest amounts of time.
This year, Essie bailed out Amber Sam, a 39-year-old Black mother of four from Long Beach. Amber was jailed for the first time in her life when she couldn’t afford to pay $50,000 bail. During her arrest, officers denied Amber’s pleas to allow her to call a family member to pick up her 3-year-old daughter. Instead, they arrested Amber in front of her daughter, then placed the toddler in foster care with a stranger.
After assessing Amber’s needs, Essie paid her bail and connected her to supportive housing, reunification resources and health services. Upon her release, Amber was connected to several Essie members — all Black women with incarcerated loved ones — who will continue to provide community, care and advocacy in and out of court in the months after her release. With their support, Amber has remained out of custody and is now starting a new job and working to regain parental rights to her daughter.
The harm unaffordable cash bail brings women and their families is unconscionable. Programs like De-Bug’s and Essie’s offer a glimpse into what’s possible if judges honor the constitutional right to pretrial freedom andTejal Kothariis a staff attorney with Civil Rights Corps and litigates challenges to cash bail in California and nationwide.
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