Stories of people trapped in jail pretrial.
Behind every statistic is a person, a parent, a worker, a neighbor, held in a cage not because of what they did, but because of what they couldn’t afford. These are some of their stories from across North Carolina.
She pleaded guilty so she wouldn't give birth in jail.
A Charlotte woman, unable to afford cash bail, accepted a guilty plea rather than risk delivering her baby behind bars. Her story is one of thousands in which the inability to pay — not the facts of a case — determines a person's fate.
Sandra Bland died in jail unable to raise $515.
Twenty-eight-year-old Sandra Bland, who died in a Waller County, Texas, jail, was pulled over for a traffic violation in 2015 by Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia. The exchange escalated, resulting in Bland's arrest and a charge of assaulting a police officer. Encinia was placed on administrative leave for failing to follow proper traffic stop procedures and was later fired from his job. At the time of her death, Bland had spent three days in jail, unable to raise $515 to pay a bail company to post bond. She was one of hundreds of people who had not been convicted that year who lost their lives in jails.
Five days in jail for holding a sign that read "Anything Helps, God Bless You."
On a chilly Saturday in January, Raleigh police arrested a 45-year-old homeless man on Old Wake Forest Road, charging him with begging from the intersection as he held a sign that read “Anything Helps, God Bless You.” Herman Smith later that day faced a magistrate, who set his bail at $500. Smith couldn’t pay. So he sat behind bars in the Wake County jail for five days before pleading guilty and walking out with a fresh misdemeanor on his record. By N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein’s estimate, jailing Smith for five days before his trial cost taxpayers $350. Nationally, keeping defendants behind bars in advance of their judgment costs taxpayers $14 billion, and Stein cites studies showing $3 billion of that is spent on low-level, nonviolent offenders such as Smith.
Will he plead guilty just to get home to his baby daughter?
A man accused of a minor crime can’t afford the $400 nonrefundable bail bondsman’s fee. Will he plead guilty just to get home to his baby daughter or remain in jail for months until his trial?
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If you, your family, or someone in your community has been affected by cash bail in North Carolina, we want to hear from you. Stories drive policy change.
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