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Disrupting the Business of Bail锟�
Why you can trust us
The United States than nearly any other country in the world. Among the millions in detention at any given time are hundreds of thousands being held in jails. According to the , 鈥淢ore than 400,000 people in the U.S. are currently being detained pretrial 鈥� in other words, they are awaiting trial and still legally innocent.鈥� A significant portion of these people are 鈥渏ailed pretrial simply because they can鈥檛 afford money bail.鈥� Increasingly, nonprofit bail funds, such as the (MFF), are stepping in to offer an alternative to the .
Elizer Darris, MFF鈥檚 co-executive director, explains, 鈥淗istorically, people have been released on what鈥檚 called their own recognizance鈥攎eaning their word that they will come back.鈥� But, he says, the reality is that 鈥渢here has not been any type of causal connection between bail and someone鈥檚 reappearance.鈥�
Yet there is one causal connection that deeply concerns Darris: the link between the skin color of people who are arrested, and an assumption of their guilt. High on the list of issues that MFF tackles is 鈥渢he criminalization of Black and Brown people鈥� and 鈥渢he automatic determination that because of how I look I must be guilty.鈥�
鈥淪omething that a lot of people don鈥檛 know, and it actually may shock people,鈥� Darris says, is that 鈥渏ails actually have worse living conditions than prisons.鈥� He says the criminal justice system essentially holds poor people hostage to 鈥渢errible jail conditions.鈥�
鈥淥ur organization exists so that [prosecutors] aren鈥檛 able to use coercive practices like jailing in order to get people to plead guilty to offenses that they otherwise would not be guilty to,鈥� Darris says. MFF makes bail payments on behalf of people who are jailed and who otherwise would be unable to afford the bail that buys them their freedom while they await trial or formal charges.
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The organization, which was the focus of during the racial justice uprisings of 2020, is now facing a that would make it illegal to operate a nonprofit bail fund in Minnesota.
Darris, who views the entirety of the criminal justice system as problematic, says, 鈥淲hat we have decided to do as an organization was to have a historical view to recognize that many of the policies and practices that we see today have their roots in slavery in the United States.鈥� Given such a framing, he sees it as 鈥渁n obligation to disrupt those practices, and that鈥檚 precisely what we are doing.鈥�
鈥淥ur organization isn鈥檛 just focused on bail funds,鈥� Darris says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 called the 鈥楩reedom Fund,鈥欌�� because that name reflects a 鈥渂roader definition that takes on the criminal justice system.鈥�
鈥淲e are trying to disrupt some of the predatory practices that are happening within bail,鈥� Darris says. 鈥淏ut what we鈥檝e seen is that鈥檚 just not enough.鈥�
As a nonprofit, MFF is prohibited from participating in political activism鈥攕o it has recently expanded its work into a second organization, a , whose function will be to 鈥渁ctually take action to put boots on the ground to door-knock within our community to not just support legislation, but to craft legislation.鈥�
鈥淚f you can鈥檛 change the policies, you change the policymakers, you change the people who will put community at the center of their decision-making,鈥� Darris says.
High on MFF Action鈥檚 list of priorities is gaining access to better data. Currently, district courts have limited public access data about who is required to pay bail, which makes it harder for activists to make their case against predatory bail practices.
Additionally, Darris says MFF Action will work to 鈥渕ake sure that bails aren鈥檛 being issued on some of the exceedingly low-level offenses that, quite frankly, do not impact public safety in the least bit.鈥�
He says, 鈥淧art of the U.S. Constitution is that you cannot be given the bail that is excessive. You have to take into account the person鈥檚 ability to pay. [Prosecutors are] not doing that here in Minnesota. And so, we are fighting to make sure that bails aren鈥檛 just frivolously being given out.鈥�
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Sonali Kolhatkar
joined 大象传媒 in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of聽大象传媒 Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute鈥檚 Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of聽Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice聽(2023) and聽Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence聽(2005). Her forthcoming book is called聽Talking About Abolition聽(Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women鈥檚 Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master鈥檚 in Astronomy from the University of Hawai鈥檌, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on 鈥淢y Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host鈥� in her 2014聽TEDx talk聽of the same name.
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