City fails on quick bail, says report

The city Correction Department is failing to enforce reforms ensuring prisoners be released from jail within three hours of posting bail, according to a new report.

The report, obtained exclusively by the Daily News, concluded that despite the threehour provision, only 12% of those surveyed were released on time.

That mandate went into effect in October 2018. It’s part of a broader bail reform law enacted in July 2017.

The study was compiled by the nonprofit Bronx Freedom Fund and the Legal Aid Society and drew from the experiences of 205 prisoners in the Bronx and Queens whose bail was posted by the Freedom Fund between January and June. It found that the average wait time for release after posting bail was nearly seven hours.

Bronx Freedom Fund Director Elena Weissmann said the report revealed “nearly two years of rampant noncompliance.”

“The Department of Correction is not only flouting local law by keeping people in jail long after their bail has been paid, their neglect is harming low-income New Yorkers every single day,” she said. “The administration’s continued refusal to comply with these reforms hurts our clients and their families on a daily basis. Mayor Bill de Blasio and the rest of City Hall must fix this at once.”

The report also found that only 25 of the 205 Freedom Fund clients were released within three hours. Twentyfour clients got out more than 10 hours after the nonprofit posted bail, 10 of them used the city’s new online bail system, which is designed to speed up the release of prisoners.

One man who was cited in the report, but not named, got out of jail nine hours after bail was paid. According to the report, that delay caused him to lose both a bed in a homeless shelter and his job.

The Department of Correction acknowledged there’s room for improvement and attributed the challenges it faces to “infrastructure and safety and security requirements.”