Starmanie Jackson, a single mother of two, was seized during a traffic stop. While in custody, police found a three-year-old warrant prompting a speedy arrest. Within minutes of her hearing, bail was placed at $700, despite being unable to afford it and having no legal representation. As a result, Ms. Jackson lost her employment since she was unable to inform her job of the situation. She was jailed for a week because she could not afford the bail. Ms. Jackson is just one example of an individual who lost their job, custody of their kids, and housing because she could not afford bail.
It is quite easy to be apprehended despite what most people may believe. This is because police do not have to be “convinced” that you are guilty. If there is sufficient evidence for the police, regardless of the situation, you can be arrested and convicted.
What is cash bail?
Cash bail is a price placed on civilians to ensure their release from jail. The accused will be detained until payment is made. This collateral is an agreement that the arrested person will return to court. A judge typically places the bail after the initial arrest. There are seven types of bonds that each have a monetary value. Surety, property, citation release, recognizance release, federal, immigration, and cash bonds are all forms of bail.
Cash bail should be abolished because it is unconstitutional. Bond and insurance companies are businesses and are not a part of the legal system. These companies violate equal protection rights under the 14th amendment and the act of prohibition under bond also violates the 8th amendment.
Bond companies operate to make a profit and not to help guarantee people’s freedom. While this system works for those with access to money, the multibillion-dollar bail industry does not provide adequate resources for defendants who cannot afford bail. There is a significant disparity in the price that bail can be set at, ranging from under $2,000 to around $500,000.
Additionally, there are incentives to set higher bails to ensure a profit. However, higher bail amounts do not increase public safety.
Many judges set bail without considering if the defendant can pay for it. As a result, one in six people in jail has yet to be proven guilty. Many people lose their jobs, custody of their kids, and housing because they wait for trials for nonviolent offenses and cannot afford to pay their way out. There are a lot of factors that can cause an arrest, and a warrant is the most common factor that causes a lot of people to be sentenced. Studies show that higher bail bonds are a primary driver for jail population growth. About 600,000 people step into a jail cell every year, and people are put in jail 10.6 million times a year. One in four people arrested will return to prison within the same year.
The bail system was created in 1789, the same year the Bill of Rights was implemented. Since then, this billion-dollar industry has charged more than 36% in additional fees to clients for minor offenses.
On top of all of this, not all people released on bond are analyzed to see if they are a danger to society under our current system. In many instances, people who have a violent past have continuously been allowed back into society. If the Founding Fathers put this system in place for the greater good of the community, why do the people who are not a threat suffer the most? And, why are most of these people Black and brown?
Unfortunately, bail amounts have also doubled over the past 20 years. This means that many people sit in jail while awaiting their trial. However, pretrial detention is also a significant factor in rearrest. Yet, being released on pre-trial did not increase the defendants’ likelihood of committing crimes. In Mississippi, bail agents can charge 10 percent on a bond valued at 100. They also can tax $50 on each bond. All of these extra fees are profits for the bail agents. Once a bond is paid, the amount is typically in the custody of the court or the sheriff. The money the courts make through bonds is then distributed through the city and county. This money is spent on general government expenditures. Instead of relying on the bonds system, a wealth tax can replace or even provide more money. Rather than forcing poor and working-class people to pay for government programs through bail, placing a higher tax on businesses and the wealthy could help provide funding.
Many people argue that bail is necessary for public safety. In New York, for example, after disbanding its bail system, many arrested people began to trend online. With their charges plastered on social media, it started a conversation regarding public safety and raised the question: Is cash bail good for public safety? Regardless of your financial status, the requirements regarding the bail amount are determined by numerous factors. There becomes an overlap of due process principles and equal protection. The process of waiting for a trial is very lengthy. Your court date can continuously be pushed back, and there is no way for you to organize your affairs. Regardless of the extent of the crime, as long as you can post bail, you are free to go. This structural linchpin divides people based on wealth and not safety.
There is no cash bail in the District, and a risk assessment algorithm determines a person’s threat to public safety. The algorithm gives judges a score that determines how likely the accused will be to return to court. Unless the defendant is dangerous or committed a severe felony, about 85% of defendants are released without bond. This assessment determined 99% of released defendants administered back into society have not been a danger. The success comes from local and state bail statutes outlining detention eligibility, restricting cash bail usage, and providing supervision options that match risk levels.
Cash bail is a flawed system that does not protect the people. It is a system constructed around monetary gain.
Regardless of the severity of the crime, you can simply buy your way out. The conversation then changes from safety to wealth. The Bill of Rights targets incarceration as a means to protect criminal defendants. However, the cash bail system hinders the public by accumulating taxpayer money.
Furthermore, a person’s release based on income is an infringement upon the 14th amendment. Bail is not a significant factor in aiding crime. Environmental factors, poverty, revenue, and other disadvantages lead to criminalization. Rather than investing in pretrial detention, increased investment in violence prevention or community services can have a more positive effect. The focus should be made on prevention.
For more information or resources to end cash bail practices check out some of these organizations. DMV Bailout has a locally focused inicative called End Money Bail you can find more information here. Harriet’s Wildest Dreams has several programs and you can find more here. Maryland 4 Justice Reform, here, has the Court Objection Project which is designed to educate people on the pretrial system while also changing the reliance on bail. These organizations provide ideas for alternatives to bail along with means to better assist defendants.
Among the Emergency Amendment (covered more in part 2 of this article series) was also language on one particular reform that has often been talked about these past few years throughout the country: Body Worn Cameras (BWC’s). The act requires that police release BWC video within five business days at the request of the Chairperson of the Council or if it involves serious use of force and/or an officer-involved death. This should make it easier for BWC videos to be made public and hopefully also hold police accountable. The logic often applied to Body Worn Cameras when people call for this reform is that the threat of having misconduct recorded will prevent police from carrying out said misconduct. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. For years we have had videos of police brutality, yet the problem has not gotten better.
MPD has one of the largest BWC programs in the country, with over 3,200 cameras for their 3,800 members, yet they also know that the program alone does nothing. On their website, they highlight the randomized controlled trial with The Lab @ DC that they ran to find the effectiveness of BWCs. But they fail to show clearly what that study found, seemingly because they concluded that BWCs had no noticeable effect.
“Our experiment suggests that we should recalibrate our expectations of BWCs. Law enforcement agencies (particularly in contexts similar to Washington, DC) that are considering adopting BWCs should not expect dramatic reductions in use of force or complaints, or other large-scale shifts in police behavior, solely from the deployment of this technology.”
Quoted directly, from a study that MPD ran itself, where 6 out of 8 people running it worked directly for MPD. They also based their results on police officers’ reports of incidents written after the fact (under the assumption that they were telling the truth). Despite this, they had no choice but to report that BWCs are not enough to affect significant change. The BWC program at MPD has received nothing but more support and more funding. Instead of investing in programs proven to work like ONSE, they are throwing money at things that have proven to do nothing.
One more major change that happened last year was the appointment of a new chief of police, Robert Contee III. Some believe that Contee’s appointment will lead to the reforms that MPD needs. But is he committed to these changes? On the one hand, Contee talks about the need for change, on the other hand, he talks about how much great change has already happened within MPD over the past decade. Contee is also a big fan of a community policing model, which unfortunately means more police interactions in communities that are already over-policed. Both Contee and Mayor Bowser would like to expand the police force (even though, MPD is one of the biggest police departments in the country). One of his first measures as chief was to increase the police presence in “six historically crime-ridden neighborhoods” in an effort to deter crime. Although this is not something unique or new from Contee, it is not the policy change that many have been saying he represents.
All of these increases in policing are being justified by talking about high rates of crime. Contee claims that more officers are needed because there simply are not enough to effectively respond to all of the calls being made. Nationwide focus on gun violence and homicide is used to pressure people into giving police more power, even though evidence shows that police do not solve these problems. Nevertheless, the MPD budget has been steadily increasing. Many police supporters will point to the budget cut in 2020, from $591,313,726 to $559,526,918, as well as the supposedly rising crime rates. However, this one cut does not represent the overall trend in the rising MPD budget. The proposed 2021 operating budget of $578,069,493, is less than the budget in 2019, is still $8 million more than the budget in 2018 at $570,087,037. Looking at MPD’s crime data, we see that the overall crime rates in DC have been falling. The homicide rate this year is higher, going from 99 by July 14th in 2020, to 101 by the same date in 2021. But that represents only a 2% increase while the overall number of crimes, both violent and property, are down by 2%. All this is with the large budget cut. This is also after a huge decrease in crime from 2019 to 2020, where the total amount of crime decreased by 19%. Despite the trend of decreased crime each year, homicides have increased, from 116 in 2017 to 160 in 2018, and then from 166 in 2019 to 198 in 2020. Rhetoric that tries to tie a lack of funding to increased homicide rates is wrong – rates have been going up well before any cuts were made in MPD’s budget. Despite what Contee wants people to believe, more policing does not solve the issue of gun violence and homicide.
While the reforms in both the NEAR Act and the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act are steps in the right direction. These have been undermined through a lack of funding or police just ignoring them. What we ultimately need is to decenter the police. The recommendations made by the Police Reform Commission speak about centering communities rather than the police to prevent crimes from happening in the first place. The first step towards a safer DC is to push back on Contee’s calls for an increased police force by making sure that the Council follows the recommendations made by the PRC. If we have learned anything from 2020, it is that public pressure campaigns do work. We need to hold the DC Council and Mayor Bowser accountable because it is not the police who will keep us safe. We keep us safe.
prohibits the use of neck restraints like chokeholds
increases access to body-worn camera videos
limits consent searches
created the Police Reform Commission
restricts MPD’s purchasing and use of military weapons, as well as limits the use of “internationally banned chemical weapons (tear gas), riot gear, and less-lethal weapons (rubber bullets)”
Limiting consent searches, restricting military weapons, and prohibiting neck restraints are changes that immediately impact how police officers carry out their jobs. Decreasing the use of tear gas, riot gear, and rubber bullets is a step to protect people’s first amendment right to freedom of assembly. It is unfortunate that the Act didn’t go into effect until a month after US Park Police came down hard on activists protesting the murder of George Floyd, as is clear in the two, age-restricted videos below.
6-22-20 US Park Police and MPD Attack Protestors, from Black Lives Matter-DC YouTube Channel
Lafayette Square 6-22-20 Attack on Protestors, from Black Lives Matter-DC YouTube Channel
But even if the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act had been officially on the books, there’s no guarantee it would have kept protestors safe. The law has a loophole that states that aggressive items like tear gas and rubber bullets can be used if there is “an immediate risk to officers of significant bodily injury.” Considering that cops use this excuse all the time, this effort to reform policing in the District might not be as helpful as it seems. Nevertheless, these are changes we should ensure are carried out.
One of the most interesting parts of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act was the creation of the Police Reform Commission (PRC). The Commission was composed of 20 representatives, none of whom were affiliated with MPD in any way, who would examine the policing practices in DC and recommend reforms. Formed in July of 2020, they would only have until the end of the year to report to Mayor Bowser.
Although they did not have much time, the Police Reform Commission published a lengthy report with many great recommendations to change how police operate within DC. They recommended replacing police with behavioral healthcare professionals as “the default first responders to individuals in crises.” Calling on police only in dangerous crises where weapons are involved, and even then, the response is in conjunction with the behavioral health professional.
Many of the recommendations in the Police Reform Commission’s report resemble provisions included in the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act of 2016. The NEAR Act establishes a new program that pairs mental and behavioral health professionals with MPD officers. The teams will identify and serve individuals with unmet needs who frequently interact with the police. It also places trained personnel in emergency rooms around the District to help de-escalate retaliatory violence and directly connect trauma victims to needed social services.
It took a coalition of organizations, including Stop Police Terror Project-DC, Black Lives Matter-DC and the American Civil Liberties Union of DC, three years to convince the city to pass the NEAR Act and another year to get it fully funded. The argument can be made that if the city expanded NEAR Act programs, some of the suggestions made in the Police Reform Commission’s report might not feel quite so necessary.
The PRC also recommended strengthening social safety nets by increasing funding for the Department Of Behavioral Health, addressing the housing needs of all DC’s residents, and decriminalizing low-level offenses like panhandling, among other recommendations. Rather than criminalizing certain behaviors, the PRC calls on DC “to expand and create community-based services and other resources that meet people’s underlying needs.” Many of their recommendations spring from what they called “Reducing and Realigning,” meaning that the size of the MPD should be reduced, and that money that usually goes to policing should go to building community programs that help people instead. As they pointed out in their report,
“While many cities have significantly reduced funding for police, MPD funding has increased by 12 percent since 2015. MPD’s budget dwarfs the District’s budgets for affordable housing, employment services, physical and behavioral health (and is less than human services).”
Black Lives Matter-DC activists have been demanding these kind of reforms almost since the groups inception in 2015. Unfortunately, their demand to Fund Black Futures didn’t get much traction.
Reduction and realignment are in their proposals through removing police from schools and taking special measures to protect young people from over-policing and criminalization, funding the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE), holding police accountable, and building a community-centered MPD with a harm reduction approach to policing.
This report is very long and goes much further into detail than this article. There is a move away from policing communities and towards building communities. Policing has never worked to bring about material improvements for working-class people. Community-based approaches like the ONSE are proven to work. Adopting the suggestions of the Police Reform Commission could be an important step in this direction. Their recommendations should be put into effect.
“Black people are allowed to be joyful or feel seen with DC renaming a street after Black Lives Matter. It’s also our responsibility to let you know what we are fighting for, who has the power to change things and that power concedes nothing without demand.”
– Kiki Green, a Core Organizer with Black Lives Matter DC
Today Black Lives Matter DC stands in solidarity with freedom fighters all over the world to honor the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Dreasjon Reed, and as always those we have lost to police here in DC:
Jeffery Price, age 22, was chased to his death in DC by the Metropolitan Police Department on May 4, 2018.
These are the names of the people that performative Black Lives Matter street art leaves out. These are the names that fuel our commitment to #DefundPolice and #StopMPD. We know that for some DC is the seat of power and imperialism, the symbolic representation of harmful systems but it is also home to hundreds of thousands of Black people who are oppressed by the very systems people claim to be against. It never fails that in the national discourse people ignore those killed right here in DC by police while protesting police brutality and muder in our city.
Image Credited to BYP100
We stand by our critique of the DC Mayor Muriel Bowser after the unveiling of the Black Lives Matter Mural and the renaming of Black Lives Matter Plaza. “Black Lives Matter” is a complete statement. There is no grey area or ambiguity. We hold that we have a duty to the loved ones named above to ensure that they are not forgotten and their deaths are not exploited for publicity, performance, or distraction. Mayor Muriel Bowser must be held accountable for the lip service she pays in making such a statement while she continues to intentionally underfund and cut services and programs that meet the basic survival needs of Black people in DC.
To chip away at the investments in communities that actually make us safer while proposing a $45 million dollar increase in funding for the Metropolitan Police Department’s budget a few weeks ago is NOT making Black lives matter. Bowser justifies the over policing of Black bodies by pointing to the heartbreaking number of Black people who have died as a result of violence in our streets. Simultaneously she publicly admits that increased police presence has little effect on violent crimes, especially homicide. Homicides continue to increase despite the MPD budget growing every year and more and more officers on the streets. In a continuation of her intentional efforts to first not fund, then dissect, and now lie about implementing the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Act (NEAR Act), that threats community violence as a public health issue, she just proposed to cut $800k from the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement that the Act created and where the violence interruption program sits. Additionally, she still has not opened the stand alone Office of Violence Prevention also required by the Act. Stop Police Terror Project DC and Black Lives Matter DC were instrumental in the creation, passage, funding of the NEAR Act.
Although Black people make up 46% of D.C.’s population, they remain the subjects of the vast majority of all stops, frisks, and uses of force in the District. A January 2018 D.C. Office of Police Complaints OPC report found that of the 2,224 total reported uses of force in Fiscal Year 2017 (October 1, 2016 through September 30, 2017), 89% involved a Black subject. A February 2018 investigative report from WUSA9 analyzed pre-NEAR Act data and found that approximately 80% of the stops involved a Black subject. Just this week OPC released its FY18 Annual Report that revealed officer misconduct complaints are up 78% since FY16, 780 complaints were received (the second consecutive year of receiving a record number of complaints), 501 new investigations were opened (more than any other year since OPC’s
We actively reject the false narrative that policing is necessary or safe. That the system of the system of policing and the injustice system are not broken, they are operating exactly the way that they were designed.
Our anger and rage, our grief is justified. We rebuke the notion that we must celebrate crumbs the Mayor gives DC residents without engaging critically in why we settle for art but not housing, street signs but not investments in the actual things that keep communities safe. If our attempts to hold this administration accountable for what we believe are multiple failures of leadership turns people away then we will stand alone. We are clear in our commitment that liberation for all Black people and real change to the conditions that keep us locked up and out will not be swayed even if people disagree with our stance.
While people celebrate this Mayor, our lawsuit against Bowser this week resulted in the DC curfew being lifted. That’s not it. While we are both taking it to the streets with direct action and support, we are also suing President Donald Trump for ordering the use of violence against protestors who were speaking out against police brutality and the murder of Black people by police. We do this because we know that both the federal and local government are complicit in the violence against protestors.
While others may forget, we do not forget any of us. When we say Black Lives Matter, we mean ALL Black lives. We will work for the liberation of all Black people in DC when it is difficult, when we are attacked, when people are busy debating whether or not protestors are violent or peaceful, and until we are free.
Therefore WE DEMAND
Defunding of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)
Black Lives Matter DC is a member-based abolitionist organization centering Black people most at risk for state violence in DC, creating the conditions for Black Liberation through the abolition of systems and institutions of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism.
We are dedicated to promoting strategies that:
empower the most oppressed Black people;
do not reinforce or legitimize systems and institutions that harm Black people including police, prisons, mass incarceration, and modern slavery.
divest from people, institutions and systems that harm us and invest in the people, institutions, systems and other models that support our liberation and empowerment.
use a diversity of tactics to promote harm reduction, political education, and non-cooperation as strategic visions.
I originally started this blog post just after former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the 2020 presidential race, much to my relief. In the midst of editing and finalizing it, the coronavirus hit and the world turned upside down. At that point, it seemed ill-timed and irrelevant to publish this. But the coronavirus is not going away any time soon, and neither is gun violence. Or racism. In fact, systemic racism is causing the coronavirus to sicken, kill and impoverish Black and Brown people at a disproportionate rate. This unjust imbalance mirrors the impact that gun violence has on communities of color as well. Despite stay at home orders, as of May 22, 2020 homicides in DC are trending even higher than they were at this time last year. Tragically, the District has experienced multiple double and triple shootings in the past few weeks, many involving teenagers or young adults, with one ending in the death of a 17-year-old. That’s why I feel it’s important to publish this blog post. Especially now, we all need to work together, fight injustices and help each other. I don’t want any level of distrust to get in the way of working together for the greater good. So consider this a case study: “Should Black and Brown Organizers Trust White Allies?”
I didn’t become the DC chapter leader for Moms Demand Action for fame and certainly not for fortune. It’s a volunteer role- not paid- and there’s nothing glamorous about working to stop people from dying of gun violence. I became the chapter leader in 2018 because that year my husband’s hometown of Parkland, Florida, and my childhood neighborhood of Squirrel Hill both experienced mass shootings. I felt I had to do more. But it wasn’t just that. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the District. I am also painfully aware that while 51% of DC’s residents are Black, approximately 96% of DC’s gun homicide victims are Black. In my experiences as a volunteer both before and after becoming chapter leader, I have met so many beautiful people here in DC whose lives are forever stained by bloodshed as either they were injured or they lost a loved one to gun violence here in DC. My uncle committed suicide by gun before I was born. I am all too familiar with the chaos and devastation that a tragedy of gun violence wreaks on a family for multiple generations. I’ve met so many survivors here in DC, I’ve listened to their stories, and I’ve built strong connections with many of them. I feel a moral obligation to them. I cannot turn my back on them. But I’m not here to save the day. I’m here to listen, learn and use my white privilege to assist however I can.
I felt immense relief when former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the presidential race in early March. My relief was not just because I vehemently disagree with his support for racist policies like stop and frisk and his callous and misogynistic comments towards women, but also because as the volunteer leader for the DC chapter of Moms Demand Action, his candidacy has sowed doubt about my volunteer-led organization with some of our partner organizations led by Black Washingtonians.
Here’s why: Bloomberg partially funds Moms Demand Action nationally, but he did not create Moms, as he erroneously claimed during the Democratic debate in South Carolina in February. Stay-at-home mother Shannon Watts founded Moms Demand Action in 2012 after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. (She had no personal connection to that shooting, but felt connected to the cause and emboldened to do something about it as she was raising her own young children at the time.) Shannon partnered with Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns in 2013 to create Everytown for Gun Safety, the umbrella organization for Moms, Everytown and the Everytown Survivor Network. Currently, he funds about 25% of the Moms budget nationally.
Moms Demand Action is an all-volunteer grassroots organization focused on passing common sense public safety measures to protect all people from gun violence. That means each chapter’s agenda is set by the volunteers and volunteer leadership who live in that city or state, with help from Everytown’s research and policy experts. (You can read more about Everytown’s national agenda here: Break the Pattern.)
Moms was started by a white suburban mother in response to a school shooting, but the organization has evolved over the years to include research, education and advocacy for domestic violence, suicide and city gun violence, which together make up the vast majority of gun violence in our country. The organization has also worked very intentionally to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive in all aspects of the work, from people to policies. For example, Shannon Watts penned this blog, “We Have to Say “Never Again” to Police Violence, Too”, about police violence after officers shot and killed Stephon Clark in his own backyard in Sacramento.
In DC, our chapter works hard to make connections with community organizations in neighborhoods most affected by gun violence and to uplift the too often overlooked and undervalued work that Black women and men have been doing in DC for decades to end gun violence. As someone who is white and who moved to DC as a young adult, I do not pretend to have that lived experience – or to have all the answers. I have learned so much from the Black and Brown people doing this challenging work, and I am grateful for their partnership and friendship. I am still learning – and Moms as an organization is still learning – about what being a true ally looks like.
A little about our chapter: We have volunteers from all eight Wards, including Black, Brown and white individuals, men and women, young professionals, students, grandparents, parents, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people of many faiths. We each come from different backgrounds, but we are all working toward a common goal: to put an end to the public health crisis of gun violence locally, regionally and nationally. Our annual DC chapter budget from Everytown is $2,400, and last year we raised an additional $18,000 to fund our local agenda and activities, as well as to support our local community partners, the majority of which are local non-profits owned and operated by Black people here in the District. We also submit grant requests to Everytown to provide additional support for the work of our local community partners, who are doing the important work of healing trauma, teaching conflict resolution skills, and addressing the myriad of root cause issues that contribute to gun violence in the District.
There are volunteers in our ranks who are vehemently opposed to Bloomberg, and there are others who supported his campaign because of the huge investment in gun violence prevention that he has made over the years. Bloomberg and Everytown spent a record $2.5 million in Virginia during the 2019 midterm elections to elect what we call “Gun Sense Candidates,” or candidates who have vowed to enact legislation that will reduce gun violence. We flipped the Virginia House and Senate in that election and the state is now starting to pass common sense gun safety laws. This will save lives in the District, as over 35% of the guns recovered in DC are traced back to Virginia. And it wasn’t just Everytown’s money that helped us win that election – Moms volunteers from DC, Maryland, and Virginia made phone calls and knocked on doors for months to help get out the gun sense vote.
I continue to be angered and saddened by the racism and sexism in our country – even within organizations and people who simultaneously support progressive work. I try every day to chip away at the systems that hold back my Black and Brown neighbors and friends.
We all want to see an end to gun violence in DC, but we know our work is only as strong as the community partnerships we have built. I welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues in person and together unravel this tension.
Rachel Usdan moved to DC in 1999 and is currently living in the District with her husband and two young children, who occasionally help her Demand Action. All opinions are her own. dc@momschapterleaders.org
