Cash bail doesn’t keep us safe; in fact, it does the opposite. Once incarcerated for being in poverty, people lose their jobs, homes and custody of their children; their physical and mental health deteriorates, along with their chances of having a fair result in court. (Getty Images)

Cash bail, the practice of requiring legally innocent people to pay money in order to be released pretrial, results in over 9,000 Kentuckians unnecessarily sitting in jail on any given day. It upends the presumption of innocence, creating a two-tiered justice system where a wealthy person, no matter whether they’re a threat to public safety or not, will easily be released after arrest because they have the money to post bail, while those experiencing poverty are forced to stay in jail even if they pose no risk.?

That’s why cash bail doesn’t keep us safe; in fact, it does the opposite. Once incarcerated for being in poverty, people lose their jobs, homes and custody of their children; their physical and mental health deteriorates, along with their chances of having a fair result in court. Just 48 hours detained pretrial increases a person’s likelihood of becoming justice-involved in the future because of how destabilizing, traumatic and criminogenic jail is.

In any scientific field, a treatment yielding this result would be discarded immediately as ineffective. But the Kentucky House of Representatives recently voted to continue this bad medicine by passing HB 5, a bill that punishes people in poverty in myriad ways, including through the placement of severe restrictions on charitable bail organizations — which are a lifeline for poor Kentuckians who can’t afford to pay bail.?

Charitable bail organizations have played a historic role in the movements for human and civil rights since the 1920s. Like food pantries, they pool resources to support the most vulnerable, closing the gap between insufficient service provision by the government and the unmet needs of our friends and neighbors. Restricting bail funds is like prohibiting the operation of food pantries and claiming you’re curing hunger.?

When The Bail Project operated a charitable bail organization in Louisville from 2018 to 2023, we provided free bail assistance and supportive services to over 4,200 Kentuckians who returned to 92% of their court dates with none of their own money on the line. Our work saved an estimated $6 million in taxpayer dollars, which could be spent on services like drug treatment, supportive housing, and jobs programs that address the root causes of crime and shut the revolving door of justice tight. Instead, with HB 5, House lawmakers discounted these benefits.

Other states and jurisdictions are coming to terms with the risks that cash bail systems pose to community safety. Harris County, Texas, for instance, began in 2019 to release people charged with misdemeanors without bail while they await trial. The result? Safety increased as rearrest rates dropped.?

Lawmakers in Kentucky don’t have to look much further than Houston and the example set by charitable bail organizations in their own state to see that a criminal justice system without bail is possible. But the majority in the House have chosen to cover their eyes instead. Now, we urge the Senate to see what the House chose not to: Kentuckians deserve to be and feel safe —? but HB 5 will undermine, not advance, community safety.