The Nation, 08/27/24: “In February 2022, Damon Jones, then 23, was pulled over while he was driving in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The o!cers found a firearm in his car and took him to jail. Jones was charged with two weapons violations. A judge set his bond at $25,000, which Jones was able to meet after his family paid a nonrefundable deposit to a bail agent and his girlfriend offered her house as collateral. He was released later that day to fight the gun charges from home.

But two days later, police swarmed his girlfriend’s house and arrested a confused Jones for a second time. Although he’d already met bail and been released, he was booked back into Allegheny County Jail (ACJ), a notorious and sometimes deadly facility in Pittsburgh.

More than two years later, Jones is still in ACJ awaiting trial. He remains ineligible for release.

Jones was rearrested in 2022 because his gun charges counted against him in two ways. First there were the criminal charges, for which he paid his bail and is still awaiting trial. But like nearly 3 million other Americans, Jones was on probation—in his case, stemming from a plea deal that he took in 2021 over a statutory sexual assault charge—and possessing a weapon was a violation of his probation terms. After learning of Jones’s new gun charges, the court filed a probation detainer, or an order to keep him in jail. Once a detainer is lodged, there is no possibility of release until the judge overseeing the original probation sentence decides to lift it.

People with probation detainers are not jailed because of the seriousness of their new charges. If it hadn’t been for his detainer, Jones would have been able to await trial for the gun charges from home. But his probation judge denied his request to lift the detainer, leaving him to wait in jail until his new criminal charges are resolved—a process that has been mired in delays.”

Read the full article here.