The State Of Pretrial Justice In America

The past five years have witnessed a remarkable growth in support for reforming our nation’s pretrial justice system (the portion of criminal justice practice that begins with a person’s first contact with law enforcement and ends once any resulting charges are resolved, usually through a plea, a trial, or dismissal). This unprecedented interest emerges from a growing awareness that existing pretrial operations lead to unnecessary detention of poor and working class people—disproportionately people of color—while those with money are able to go free with little or no supervision, regardless of any danger they may present. Current pretrial justice practice is, in short, unfair, unsafe, a waste of public resources, and a significant contributor to the nation’s widely recognized problem of mass incarceration.