7 - Bail, Bills, and Criminal Injustice (w/ Lara Bazelon and Akeem Browder)

Hear the Bern

On this episode, Briahna explores how, as AOC recently put it, "justice is purchased." Thanks to cash bail, thousands of low-income Americans sit behind bars without any kind of trial, conviction, or sentencing — all because they cannot afford to buy their freedom. Lara Bazelon, a law professor at the University of San Francisco, explains how cash bail criminalizes poverty. Akeem Browder talks about how his brother Kalief spent three years in Rikers Island starting at age 16 simply because he couldn’t afford bail, and how the psychological toll of that experience led him to take his own life.

Bernie and AOC announcing their Loan Shark Prevention Act legislation: https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/976956259362039/

ACLU and Color of Change report on the companies behind bail bond agents: https://www.aclu.org/report/selling-our-freedom-how-insurance-corporations-have-taken-over-our-bail-system

WaPo article on the companies backing the anti-bail reform effort in California: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/29/petition-drive-backed-by-private-equity-company-pays-signature-overturn-californias-new-law-ending-cash-bail/