NEW YORK (AP) – Thousands of New Yorkers accused of low-level or non-violent crimes won’t face the prospect of raising cash for bail under a plan that seeks to keep such suspects out of the troubled Rikers Island jail complex.
The $18 million city plan, detailed to The Associated Press ahead of the announcement on Wednesday, allows judges beginning next year to replace bail for low-risk defendants with supervision options including daily check-ins, text-message reminders and required drug or behavioral therapy.
Bail has long been criticized by inmate advocates for unfairly targeting poor people. And reforms were recommended by a mayoral task-force last year after the AP reported on the case of a mentally ill homeless man who was unable to make $2,500 bail for trespassing and died in a sweltering hot Rikers cell.
More calls for reform gained traction after the suicide last month of 22-year-old Kalief Browder. When he was 16 years old, Browder was unable to make $3,000 bail on charges he stole a backpack. He ended up being held in Rikers for three years, beaten by inmates and guards alike and held in solitary confinement before charges against him were eventually dropped.
“I think the basic principle is that Kalief Browder and other cases have begun to signify this (need for reform) in the public eye,” said Elizabeth Glazer, the mayor’s criminal justice coordinator. “We want to focus on risk to be the determining factor to decide if someone will be in or out; and it has to be risk, not money.”