There seems to be a growing gulf between the will of the American people and the function of our criminal justice system. Though more Americans oppose the death penalty today than at any other time in the last four decades, capital punishment persists as a primary cog in the penal system. And while at least 77 percent of Americans oppose mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent drug offenses, prisons in at least 26 states remain overcrowded, largely with inmates imprisoned long term for non-violent crimes.
This disconnect may exist, in part, because there are so few points within the criminal justice process (outside of jury deliberation) where the general public can intervene. But in a paper in the Michigan Law Review, Jocelyn Simonson, an assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School, argues that a trend of community groups using funds to post bail for strangers who can’t do so themselves has the potential to force real change in how our justice system views the constitutionality of money bail and its future use.
[For more of this story, written by Kate Wheeling, go to https://psmag.com/how-communit...f08366a29#.8q4n0ebku]
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