To the editor: Thanks for the op-ed on bail (“The push to carry extra nonviolent suspects in jail threatens public security,” Sept. 30). Eliminating bail is critically essential, as a good portion of individuals arrested are poor, folks of shade and/or accused of nonviolent crimes. Some are harmless however can’t pay the bail bondsman, resulting in dramatic penalties: lack of job and status, household issues or, because the article factors out, lack of life.
That is made even worse when crimes dedicated by the wealthy are so continuously minimized. A Jeffrey Epstein can go on committing abuses for years and nonetheless strike offers with federal prosecutors.
Bail is patently unjust and doesn’t make us safer — fairly the other. Jails are colleges for crime and are unsafe. The poor pay the value, harmless or not, and we, the taxpayers, foot the invoice.
Marie Matthews, San Pedro
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To the editor: Decide your poison if money bail is restored. When it thrived extensively, an enormous business of bail-bond racketeers benefited. Money bail’s elimination decimated their ranks, and for good cause.
Certain, there are issues with the present system. However any treatment that merely restores money bail will revive its well-documented historic downsides.
Gary Dolgin, Santa Monica
