Nationwide, a movement is growing to address what civil rights advocates have called a “wealth-based detention scheme”—the traditional bail system, which often holds arrestees who can’t scrape together the funds to post bail, even for minor offenses. About 450,000 Americans are held in jails each day because of inability to pay, according to the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and Equal Justice Under Law, a Washington-based civil rights group.

Eric Holder, the former attorney general, has now added his voice to this chorus of concern. In an October white paper to Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, Holder argues the state’s pretrial detention system is unconstitutional because it largely jails people based on their inability to post bond. To address this situation, Holder argues that judges must only set bail that individuals can actually afford, while denying bail to those deemed likely to be a flight risk or a danger to public safety.

[For more of this story, written by George Joseph, go to http://www.citylab.com/crime/2...s-we-know-it/506552/]