Sam Bankman-Fried and Cash Bail
Sam Bankman-Fried posted perhaps the biggest bail ever posted and is now out of custody. However, most poor people are not given the same courtesy.
An Illinois state court declared that the state’s SAFE-T act could not go forward to the extent it was set to abolish cash bail with the new year. The reform wasn’t even set to be that monumental after significant carve outs retained judge’s right to detain people for a long list of crimes. But for some cash bail would be removed and poor people charged with many crimes would walk free pre-trial thanks to the reform. There are over 785,000 people in local jails across the country and most of them are in pre-trial detention, not convicted of any crime, and eligible for bail. Tens of thousands of these people are in custody on bail of less than $1,000, in custody serving more time than they probably ever would have otherwise, simply because they’re too poor to post bail. Any move to free them is a move worth supporting.
At the same time as the brakes were put on bail reform in Illinois, Sam Bankman-Fried is out of custody on a $250 million dollar bail, some speculate the most significant bail ever posted. It’s worth noting Bernie Madoff’s bail was only $10 million dollars. Much higher bail amounts have been set for a number of high profile criminals, mostly murderers, but those are rarely posted. Sam Bankman-Fried actually had the resources necessary to post the exorbitant bail. Sam Bankman-Fried hasn’t been convicted of any crimes but the point is that people with resources aren’t subjected to the same system.
At my local jail there are a couple dozen people held on $300 bonds, meaning they themselves or nobody in their lives are able to give the jail $300 dollars they will get back if their loved one shows up for court or give a bondsman $30 they won’t give back. That’s all it would take to secure their freedom pre-trial. If you up those numbers to $1,000 dollars cash and $100 with a bondsman the number of people impacted in my local jail tops 100. This isn’t an aberration and in jails all around the country poor people are caged because they simply don’t have up to a few hundred dollars on hand.
This incredibly unjust state of affairs is exactly what cash bail reforms are meant to solve. It’s simply not a problem for people with money. If you have a Sam Bankman-Fried amount of money almost any amount of bail is postable. Which again is fine, but nobody should be held in custody simply because they don’t have cash on hand. The Illinois reforms will hopefully be upheld by the courts and allowed to proceed. The solution to this significant gap in how our criminal legal system treats the poor and those with means is to free the poor, not jail the rich (though even as an abolitionist it’s fair to say many deserve it).
Cash bail was recently ended in Harris County, Texas, home to Houston, and the results have proved everything advocates for ending cash bail have been saying the whole time. Namely, it’s simply a mechanism to cage the poor and doesn’t do much to get people to appear for court, keep the public safe, or impact conviction rates except to make them more likely because people enter pleas simply to get out of jail. Ending cash bail in Harris County freed thousands, decreased conviction rates, and increased diversion, all outcomes humane people should support.
Ending cash bail should be front and center for the left but unfortunately the policy has many reactionary detractors. The political status quo on both sides of the aisle are by and large against ending cash bail, citing overblown “public safety” concerns that don’t engage with the actual reality of the policies consequences at all. That makes sense coming from Republicans, and to a slightly less extent the Democratic Party, but from the left, socialists even, the skepticism is quite surprising.
People like Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks and Ben Burgis of Jacobin have come out skeptical of cash bail and in support of the carceral state. The main thrust of their argument is that crime and particularly “violent crime” victimizes the working class and these policies enable that victimization and are therefore out of touch with the working class and what they really need and desire. That’s simply not the reality and ignoring reality and leaning into reactionary politics isn’t surprising from Republicans and Democrats but coming from people who identify as “socialists” (or at least socialist adjacent) is disappointing to say the least.
We need to end cash bail. We need to quit caging the poor. And we need to build a politics that stands up for the incarcerated and defunds the institutions that criminalizes them. That is the only way forward.