As with any law, there are issues that still remain. In addition to the fear propaganda cited in OPie's thread, sparked me to write this post.
Advocates of equal justice believe that new, no cash bail laws, such as California’s Money Bail Reform Act, still give too much power to the courts. This continues to speak to the point of an individual not being allowed due process before being found guilty of a crime. However, even with these issues and ideas still to be worked out, there is no statistical evidence that eliminating cash bail and pretrial detention will result in crime increasing.
Remember, changes in the cash bail system is not for all crimes. The changes that are happening are directed towards nonviolent crimes and petty offenses like misdemeanors, so do not buy into the false rhetoric that we are opening all our jails and letting out rapists, child molesters, and murderers. That is simply not true.
This is not just in California either, as a number of states such as Kentucky, New Mexico, and New Jersey had reformed their cash bail system, however, California was the first to completely eliminate its cash bail system. Now, other states such as Illinois, Nebraska, Indiana, and New York have enacted bills to change their cash bail system.
The A primary reason many states who have made changes to their cash bail system have cited as why they have done so is because of the clogging up of their jails. Across our nation, states and federal systems are struggling to find space for all the incoming individuals being incarcerated.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative, more than 500,000 people in the United States were detained in jails before their trial in 2018. New Jersey was one of the first states to reform their cash bail system. In their first year with the new system in place, their pretrial jail population fell by 20 percent.