Campaign to inform public of free alternatives to paying bail

Inmates can be supervised for $15 a day, rather than the costly $159 a day it takes to keep someone in jail

SAN JOSE >> Eager to save taxpayers money and reduce the jail population, Santa Clara County officials Tuesday launched a multilingual campaign to educate the public about free alternatives to bail.

Currently, only information about costly bail bonds is posted in list form in the jails, leaving many inmates with the false impression that they must pay or plead guilty to be released. Bail agents typically charge a nonrefundable fee of 10 percent of the full bail amount, which often amounts to thousands of dollars.

Now, under a $50,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the county will provide information in English, Spanish and Vietnamese about its Office of Pretrial Services, which interviews defendants at their request and advises judges about the risk of them not showing up for court or reoffending if they are released without bail or under court supervision. Pretrial Services provides urine testing for drug and alcohol detection when a judge deems it necessary, and electronic monitoring via an ankle bracelet for those restricted to home detention.

The office is not new, but the “No Cost Release” campaign will help spread the word through a continuous-loop video that will be shown in county offices and jail intake and booking areas, as well as a web page, posters and brochures. CreaTV San Jose produced the video and also will air it on its public-access channels.

It costs county taxpayers about $15 a day to have an inmate supervised by the Office of Pretrial Services compared to $159 a day to lock someone up in jail.

In its grant application, the county estimated that about 2,600 inmates on any given day may stand to benefit from the information. Since then, the jail population has dropped, in part because starting on Oct. 1, the county began automatically re-

leasing people accused of committing crimes that carry bail amounts under $14,000, such as minor drug possession or trespassing.

On Tuesday, about 75

percent, or more than 2,350 inmates, of the county's 3,143 inmates were awaiting resolution of their cases through a plea bargain or trial, and had not been convicted of a crime.

The campaign is part of a wide-ranging county plan that includes creating a nonprofit fund to

post bonds for low-risk defendants who otherwise couldn't afford it. Bail reform advocates, including county Supervisors Cindy Chavez and Dave Cortese, as well as local police chiefs and civil rights leaders, argue that bail has become an unfair burden on the poor, allowing moneyed defendants to

stay free while those who can't afford bond languish behind bars awaiting their day in court.

The California Bail Agents Association, a trade group that represents bondsmen, opposes the plan, saying the critics are trying to dismantle a system that works at no cost to taxpayers to ensure the

accused show up in court. Among other concerns, the association points to a recent uptick in California's violent crime rate.

Advocates contend that more people can be released without impacting public safety after being reviewed under a risk-assessment protocol developed by Pretrial Services.

For instance, in Washington, D.C., where 80 percent of defendants are now released without bail, 88 percent make all scheduled court appearances and avoid new arrests, and 99 percent avoid new arrests for violent crimes.