According to Human Rights Watch, between 2011-2015, one-third of the nearly 1.5 million felony arrests made in California ended in either charges never being filed, charges being dismissed or acquittal, with such resolutions coming days, weeks or months after arrest.

In a nation where people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, people who have not been found guilty of a crime and found eligible for release from jail pending a trial or further proceedings should not have their lives turned upside down simply because they can’t afford monetary bail. We think it’s normal, but it’s not. Only two countries, the U.S. and the Philippines, allow for-profit bail bondsmen.

This is a costly problem. As a recent report from the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard University Law School noted, in addition to the high direct costs of incarceration, pretrial detention can have severe collateral consequences for defendants and their families.

People detained in jails for prolonged periods of time can be at risk of losing their jobs, their vehicles, their homes, their health care and even the custody of their children, regardless of whether or not they are ever found guilty of the crime for which they were arrested.

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