Government Policy and Budget Discussion Thread (no politics)

[847badgerfan]

Lake Burglars!!

[utee94]

Lake Burglars!!

Those hayseeds will burgle ANYthing!

[CWSooner]

Those hayseeds will burgle ANYthing!

It's not burgling, it's boasting when the facts aren't there to match the brag.
We probably had some immigrants from south of the border who are responsible for that.

[betarhoalphadelta]

It's not burgling, it's boasting when the facts aren't there to match the brag.
We probably had some immigrants from south of the border who are responsible for that.

The type that are all hat and no cattle? 

[utee94]

The type that are all hat and no cattle?

Well if you actually have cattle, then I guess you can't really be all hat and NO cattle, can you?  

Perhaps more hat than cattle, though...

[CWSooner]

In Texas, the brags are bigger, but so are the put-downs!

[FearlessF]

lots of guy wearing hats that don't know what cattle smell like

[Brutus Buckeye]

[847badgerfan]

I didn't know where to put this, so this seemed like a good place. This article is from the Chicago Tribune. Maybe there should be a policy made, against these bail people. At a minimum, they should be made to release names.

************

Prosecutors charged 34-year-old Christopher Stewart with being an armed habitual criminal last year after the four-time felon was allegedly caught illegally carrying a handgun.

At the time, Stewart’s ex-girlfriend had obtained an order of protection, saying that just days earlier he had shot a pistol into the ground at her 6-year-old son’s birthday party and threatened to kill her. “I should pop you right now bitch,” he shouted, according to her filing.

A charity called The Bail Project posted $5,000 in cash to release Stewart from Cook County Jail. A month later, Stewart was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly set fire to the ex-girlfriend’s apartment while she was inside. Police rescued her as she hung out of a kitchen window.

During the last three years, The Bail Project and a second nonprofit — the Chicago Community Bond Fund — have paid to release nearly 1,000 pretrial defendants from Cook County Jail. The groups are part of well-funded, nationwide efforts to eliminate cash bail as a condition of pretrial release and ensure poor people are not jailed for criminal charges simply because they cannot afford bond. 

The charities contend that the risk to public safety of releasing pretrial detainees is minimal. Many defendants they bailed out were charged with misdemeanors, and the two groups say they have near universal success in helping released defendants abide by court orders and stay out of trouble.

The charities declined to identify the people they have bonded out, citing their organizations’ privacy policies.

But through public records, Tribune reporters were able to identify 162 people charged with felonies whom the charities have bailed out since February 2017. Among them were three people charged with murder, 10 accused of attempted murder, 32 felons allegedly caught carrying a gun and 22 defendants charged with being an armed habitual criminal — a person who has at least two convictions for certain types of dangerous or serious felonies and is then caught with a gun.

More than a fifth of these 162 defendants went on to be charged with new crimes while out on charity-sponsored bond, the Tribune’s investigation found.

Because gun violence continues to plague Chicago neighborhoods, with homicides up 34% and shootings up 27% by mid-March compared with the same time last year, the Tribune also examined all felony gun bonds of $5,000 or above from October 2019 through February. The charities posted bond for more than a quarter of these defendants — a total of 50 such bonds.

Amid the coronavirus crisis, which has killed six jail detainees and infected nearly 500 as of Monday, the two charities have accelerated their efforts by funding the release of at least 200 defendants in recent weeks. The Community Bond Fund also joined other advocates to file a pending federal lawsuit demanding the immediate and wholesale release of Cook County detainees, saying the virus puts all inmates at grave risk.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot responded in a court filing that mass release of jail detainees could place Chicago residents “at an increased risk of being the victims of serious crimes.” For now, a federal judge has ruled that jail officials should increase testing of detainees and enforce social distancing in the institution.
Chicago crime victims interviewed by the Tribune said they did not know that charitable organizations had paid to bond out the people accused of attacking them and others.



For example, the Chicago Community Bond Fund put up $10,000 in bond money in October to release Kavell Buchanan while he was awaiting trial on charges of driving a stolen car. Then 18, Buchanan had served time in juvenile detention for three separate aggravated batteries and a robbery.

Two months after the charity bailed him out, Buchanan was arrested after he allegedly indicated he had a gun while trying to steal a man’s PlayStation 4 Console.

The victim, Enkhbat Batgerel, said he was stunned that the Chicago Community Bond Fund had bailed out Buchanan on the previous stolen vehicle charge. “By a charity? That’s mind-blowing,” Batgerel said. “Do they know his rap sheet, his history, before giving him that type of help?"

The Chicago Community Bond Fund also paid $5,000 in February 2019 to bail out Izarious Cannon, who had allegedly stuck a gun in the face of a supermarket worker and threatened to shoot him if he did not hand over his money and iPhone, records show.
“I am still afraid two years later,” said Milton Berrezueta, whom Cannon allegedly robbed in August 2018. “It’s not good for a charity to free someone, because he’s just going to hurt someone else. It’s awful.”
Cannon went on to be charged in separate felony cases with driving a stolen car and possessing ammunition, and delivery of cocaine and fentanyl. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and awaits trial on drug charges as well as the earlier armed robbery charge.
While not directly addressing specific cases cited by the Tribune, the two charities said the newspaper was highlighting examples with poor outcomes. The groups’ efforts, they say, are beginning to reverse a historic racial injustice by assisting many people of color who are presumed innocent but cannot afford bond. The charities say their aim is to level the judicial playing field by making it possible for these released defendants to care for their families, return to their jobs and prepare their defenses.

In Tribune interviews, leaders of both charities said they were transparent with the public and donors about the serious felony charges facing many of the detainees they bail out.


Matthew McFarland, a regional operations manager for The Bail Project, said: “I think we represent ourselves accurately. How we represent our efforts and mission are very clear. The message is to help people too poor to pay their own bail.

“We’re charge agnostic,” McFarland added. “We are operating off the presumption of innocence.”
“I think that we are forthright. We’re very clear whenever we’re asked that we don’t make distinctions based on charge,” said Sharlyn Grace, executive director of the Chicago Community Bond Fund.

“Also, many of the charges sound much more concerning to the public than they are in reality, right?” Grace added. “The charge does not mean the person is a threat. The charge does not tell the story of who the person is and it should not be the sole determining factor in how they’re treated pretrial.”


Both civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson and businessman and political candidate Willie Wilson have been bailing out Cook County Jail detainees for years. But both said in Tribune interviews that they specifically exclude people charged with violent felonies or crimes with guns.

“Society would not appreciate that. That would not be acceptable,” Jackson said.

Said Wilson: “I’m not comfortable helping someone charged with rape or other violence.”

Goal: Eliminate cash bail

Tapping a broad range of donors that include established foundations and religious groups, the Chicago Community Bond Fund and The Bail Project both rent office space in a storefront at 601 S. California Ave. called the Westside Center for Justice.

The two charities share the goal of eliminating cash bail, and they coordinate which bonds to pay so they don’t duplicate cases. But they have distinct histories.

Since its founding in 2015, the Chicago Community Bond Fund has worked exclusively in Cook County and says it has paid about $1.8 million to post bond for more than 300 people. The group’s website refers to bail as “ransom money ... just a stopgap in an unjust and racist system.”


The article continues on for a good while, but it's worth the read. I don't have the answers, but I think what Jackson and Wilson do makes sense. No help for those accused with violent felonies.


https://www.chicagotribune.com/investigations/ct-charities-bail-reform-cook-county-coronavirus-20200429-wgofyh4pnrdixgps76c7ck7bhu-story.html

[MrNubbz]

There worse than PETA

[SFBadger96]

Well, it raises and interesting point: the ability to pay the bail set has very little to do with how dangerous the person is, right? So the wealthier you are, the more dangerous you can be and still win your freedom. It's almost as if bail should be conditioned on how dangerous the person is, not how much money they have.

I'm not at all endorsing paying bail to release dangerous criminals, but these examples of a non-profit putting up relatively small bail amounts to release dangerous people does pretty well highlight the issue: the bail system needs reform to focus on the danger, not the wealth, of the accused.

[Cincydawg]

Well, it raises and interesting point: the ability to pay the bail set has very little to do with how dangerous the person is, right? So the wealthier you are, the more dangerous you can be and still win your freedom. It's almost as if bail should be conditioned on how dangerous the person is, not how much money they have.

I thought that was a key factor in setting bail, how dangerous a person might be if let out.  Crimes that do not allow for bail are things like murder.

[SFBadger96]

CD, you would think that--most of us do. There is an element of danger to the community in bail decisions, but there is also the reality of how much space there is in a county jail and the innocent until proven guilty nature of our system that is ingrained in our national subconscious (and our Constitution). Cash bail assumes the person can be released, then focuses more on flight risk. As a result, it focuses more on the ability of the accused to pay than it does on their danger to the community. Unsurprisingly, this has lead to a great deal of abuse by people who prey on poor people in difficult economic circumstances.

[Cincydawg]

I figure if they were charged with a crime they must be guilty.