“Americans are generally aware that at any given moment, 2.2 million people are locked up in our prisons and jails, 700,00 of them in our county and city jails. What most don't know is that, over the course of a given year, a total of 11.7 million people spend some amount of time in America's county and city jails, double the number in 1983. Three-fifths of them have not been found guilty of anything, and three-fourths, both convicted and pretrial detainees, are there for nonviolent traffic and other low-level offenses. African Americans are detained at rates nearly five times greater than whites and three times higher than Latinos. The total cost is $9 billion a year.

Why? Two simple words: money bail.”