Pittsburgh City Paper, 12/01/20: “The Abolitionist Law Center (ALC) released a report today outlining their findings that show stark imbalances in how disproportionately often Pittsburgh’s Black population is incarcerated, arrested, and confronted by police and the criminal-justice system.

In a press release, the ALC describes the report as analyzing ‘trends in arrests and bail decisions, highlighting the impact of police and judicial discretion’ in which they found ‘an undeniable system of racial apartheid.’ The report collected data from Allegheny County municipal court dockets from May 11 to June 8 of this year.

The ALC is a Pittsburgh-based law firm that advocates on behalf of incarcerated people, especially those whose rights were violated during the judicial process or while in jail or prison.

Among the most significant statistics in the report is the finding that the population of the Allegheny County Jail is 67% Black, even though Allegheny County’s population as a whole is less than 13% Black. Within Pittsburgh, the Black population is around 23%, but according to the ALC’s report, Black residents in 2019 experienced 69% of all search and seizures made without a warrant, and 63% of all arrests by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police.

The report also analyzed data pertaining to bail and found that within the studied time period, judges in Allegheny County imposed over $5 million in bail on 351 defendants, for an average of $14,759 per defendant. This includes both secured bail, where defendants must pay a percentage or all of the assigned bail in order to be released, and unsecured bail, where defendants pay only if they fail to appear in court.”

Read the full article here.