The United States must reform its bail system to save taxpayers as much as $78 billion a year and "help restore Americans' faith in our justice system," Sens. Rand Paul and Kamala Harris said Thursday.
"Our bail system is broken," the senators said in an op-ed in The New York Times. "And it's time to fix it."
Paul is a two-term Republican from Kentucky. Harris, a California Democrat, is in her first term. They serve together on the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
"Our justice system was designed with a promise: to treat all people equally," the senators said. "Yet that doesn't happen for many of the 450,000 Americans who sit in jail today awaiting trial because they cannot afford to pay bail.
"Whether someone stays in jail or not is far too often determined by wealth or social connections, even though just a few days behind bars can cost people their job, home, custody of their children — or their life."
Further, "we must also reform a bail system that is discriminatory and wasteful," Harris and Paul said, noting that "black and Latino men respectively pay 35 percent and 19 percent higher bail than white men."
The senators have introduced legislation that will allow the Justice Department to block grant aid to states to develop bail programs tailored to specific needs and objectives.
They cited programs in Kentucky, New Jersey, Colorado and West Virginia that have taken various "personalized risk assessments" into consideration, including criminal history and substance abuse, or have given weight to other factors.
The legislation also includes accountability and data-collection measures.
"Enabling states to better institute such reforms also honors one of our nation's core documents, the Bill of Rights," Paul and Harris said.
"In drafting the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits excessive bail, the founders sought to protect people from unchecked government power in the criminal justice system.
"This should not be a partisan issue."
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