(NewsNation) — Bail reform hasn’t been received well by some law enforcement officers, judges and politicians. But advocates for eliminating cash bail have sometimes described cash bail as a penalty on poverty.
During NewsNation’s “Crime in America” townhall, Durham, North Carolina Mayor Elaine O’Neal questioned what’s fair.
O’Neal said while she doesn’t agree with a lot of bond policies currently being used, there needs to be a way to get alleged offenders to court.
“There’s always going to be a segment of a population that’s going to be affected (by cash bonds) negatively. That’s just a lot of people in a lot of systems. But you have to have a way to get people to court,” O’Neal said.
A woman at the town hall said her son was stabbed to death by four people and it was captured on video. She said the Manhattan District Attorney released two of the people charged in her son’s death. She believes bail reform is “garbage.”
“Bail reform, less is more, raise the age, elder parole, all that garbage that’s happening here in New York City, is nothing but a runaway train that’s crashing right into Black and brown communities,” she said.
While O’Neal is willing to review a variety of alternatives when it comes to the bail system, she thinks it’s important to look at the big picture.
“You can’t just discount what has been going on for a long time without really understanding how it all interplays,” O’Neal said.
She added: “You may have people who are committing very (small) offenses, but suppose they’ve done 10 of them in the last 15 years and they have a history of failure to appear; how do you equalize that?”
A NewsNation and Decision Desk HQ poll of registered voters found crime was the second largest issue Americans are worried about, behind only inflation. About 58% of voters say America isn’t tough enough on crime.