Two Cities Took Different Approaches to Pandemic Court Closures. They Got Different Results.

In just one year, the Sacramento County Criminal Justice System reduced its backlog of court cases from 1000 to 100. To do so, they increased and prioritized efficiencies like night court, collaboration with prosecutors, and bringing in judges out of retirement.

The Tap In Center in St. Louis connects volunteer attorneys with people who have open warrants to work toward recalling them. Since the service launched a little over a year ago, nearly 300 warrants have been recalled.

Since 2018, The Bail Project has turned $41 million in donated money into cash bail to free more than 15,500 people in dozens of cities from pretrial detention. The project grew out of the work of Bronx Defenders, which saw over a decade the people it bailed out nearly all showed up for court dates and most did not get into new trouble while out of jail. Now the Bail Project is expanding with new offices in four Southern states, a reflection of the region's high incarceration rates and racial disparities. In the campaign to end cash bail as a penalty for poverty, bail funds serve as a stopgap.

The legal process for changing your name and gender on drivers' licenses or birth certificates was—and, to a degree, still is—convoluted, expensive, and time-consuming. A grassroots movement started after the 2016 Presidential Election that used GoFundMe, Facebook, and public support to help Madeline Snyder and other trans people from Tyler, Texas change their legal documents all at once. The process wasn't always straightforward, but it had about a 75% success rate and brought with it a groundswell of support from the trans and ally communities.

While there are many factors that have contributed to the sky high incarceration rates in the United States which have left prisons bursting at the seams, one of the causes remains the simple fact that the resources of a private prosecutor vastly outweigh those of publicly-funded defense attorneys.

New Jersey has eliminated cash bail and will instead make a determination, driven in part by computer algorithms, on whether someone is likely to commit another crime or not show up for their court date. This eliminates a system where more than a third of people awaiting trial were behind bars only because they could not afford bail. If a judge does decide to hold someone in jail, another reform kicks in assuring a speedy trial by setting required deadlines for cases to be heard.

Across the country, new criminal justice campaigns are seeking to redefine how criminal records are both accessed and interpreted. Given that current crime histories fail to denote context and stories of culmination, these new products are seeking to both delay the effect criminal convictions have, as well as reshape how criminal records are recorded.

Many offenders get out of jail owing hundreds or thousands of dollars in court and parole fees but face barriers to financing and job acquisition, sticking them in a punitive, vicious cycle of debt and arrest. A program called the Clapham Set, perhaps paired with conditional cash transfers - may be a solution, as it erases fees for felons who complete rehab and job training upon release.

Felons get out of jail owing hundreds or thousands of dollars in court and parole fees, acting as an often insurmountable barrier preventing them from reintegrating into society and staying out of jail. What's worse, these fees often end up costing the state more than they produce. Two columns on a program called the Clapham Set, which erases or reduces debts for felons who take classes and job training.

Partners for Justice embeds trained "client advocates" inside public defenders' offices to address defendants' nonlegal needs (such as: housing, addiction treatment, and mental health services). This has demonstrably improved outcomes, including a nearly 50% increase in case dismissals or diversions in Delaware County and a fivefold increase in public service referrals across New Jersey pilot counties.