Georgia’s new cash bail law seeks to punish the poor — and protesters, too

In a troubling move that overturns criminal justice reforms passed in 2018, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Wednesday a Republican-backed bill expanding the use of cash bail. Starting July 1, judges will be required to set bail in cases where previously they could have decided to release people without financial conditions. People who are legally presumed innocent but can’t afford to pay bail will be stranded in jail on charges for minor, nonviolent misdemeanor offenses that wouldn’t require incarceration if they were convicted. Even worse, the law simultaneously attacks charitable bail funds, one of the only lifelines that low-income residents have in these situations.

The law simultaneously attacks charitable bail funds, one of the only lifelines that low-income residents have in these situations

The law will restrict charitable bail funds, and even individuals, from helping more than three people in need of bail assistance per year and subject them to criminal charges if they don’t comply. None of these restrictions will apply to for-profit bail bond agents, who charge a 10% premium for their services, and who rarely face the same levels of scrutiny that bail funds do. Without charitable bail funds, more poor Georgians will be forced into often-predatory contracts with bail bond agents to get their loved ones out of jail.

Charitable bail funds across the country have found themselves caught in conservatives’ crosshairs. Last year, after people protested for months against the construction of a $109 million police training facility in Atlanta, law enforcement agents arrested nonprofit workers with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. That charitable bail fund had been providing bail assistance to those who’d been arrested while protesting. The arrests were deemed by some as an excessive display of force.

Charitable bail funds are being increasingly targeted, despite their humanitarian missions and despite the historic role such organizations have had in human and civil rights movements since the 1920s.

Georgia’s new law will have disastrous consequences for some of the most vulnerable people in the state, protesters or otherwise. Parents will lose custody of their children. People will be evicted from their homes and fired from their jobs. Those struggling with their health — physical and mental — will decline. People of color and individuals living in poverty will be most affected. The effects of pretrial incarceration will destabilize individuals and families for years to come.

The Bail Project launched in 2018, and since then we’ve provided free bail assistance and voluntary supportive services to more than 30,000 low-income Americans. Our clients have returned to 91% of their court dates, a statistic that lays waste to the argu