Pittsburgh City Paper, 01/13/21: “MAN-E was 16 years old when he was first arrested. While he wasn’t found guilty of that charge, he and his family still suffered consequences. MAN-E, who uses a pseudonym but provided Pittsburgh City Paper his legal name, says the bail set from that charge was $25,000. He says he was fortunate enough that his family could raise enough money to secure the funds through a bail bondsman, but his family still had to forfeit a percentage — thousands of dollars, in this case — to the bondsman.

MAN-E, who is part of the BUKIT Bail Fund, a local collective of volunteers who raise money ‘for supporting the release of incarcerated individuals and the campaign to end cash bail,’ according to its website, has been charged three other times since, and each time was given a cash bail. Even though he was never found guilty of these charges, and some were dropped by prosecutors, he says he still had incurred more than $100,000 in total bail. That means he either has to hold large sums of cash to provide to courts, which will then be refunded once he appears for his hearing and/or trial, or he has to provide a percentage or that to a bail bondsman, who will then make the bail payment.

‘In one case, my mother had to put our house up to a bail bondsman, and if I didn’t show up to the court, then they could take her house,’ says MAN-E.

This system of cash bail is common in Allegheny County, and in most of the United States. The justification of assigning large sums of money bail to the accused is to encourage them to return to trial and hearings. If they don’t show up, they forfeit the money and an arrest warrant is issued. If bail is not met, the accused are incarcerated in the Allegheny County Jail, which, like many jails, has documentation of unsafe conditions. This happens even if a person is eventually deemed not guilty or charges are dropped. MAN-E says he has spent a total of a few weeks in jail, even though he has never been convicted of any crime.”

Read the full article here.