Dimitri Archipov Archipov 1

April 24 2019

Prof. Cahill

ENG102

Proposal Paper

Community Service and Go Home: An Alternative Bail System

The United States is one of the biggest countries in the world. However, The United

States possess one major flaw: the legal system. The legal system has one of the biggest flaws

that put poor people in jail. The money-bail system that is currently in place makes it so people

that obtain a misdemeanor can’t afford their bail because it constantly gets set too high which

incriminates people who have only committed a small crime. The money-bail system needs to be

abolished and replaced by a community service system.

The money-bail system is an unfair system that needs to be altered. As much as “700,000

people were locked up in local jails” in which most of them had not been convicted of a crime

(https://www.aclu.org). We shouldn’t be putting that many people in jail strictly off the money-

bail system. This system that is currently in place creates an unfair playing field for people with

misdemeanors. According to the New York times “People who can’t afford bail are forced to

choose between taking a guilty plea or waiting for trial behind bars” (Steinberg and Feige). In

America “Poorer Americans and people of color often can't afford to come up with money for

bail, leaving them stuck in jail awaiting trial, sometimes for months or years. Meanwhile,

wealthy people accused of the same crime can buy their freedom and return home”

(https://www.aclu.org). This is creating an unfair advantage for wealthy people because the legal

system is catered to benefit them.

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The perfect solution to the money-bail system is to create a community service system.

This system makes any individual who has a high bail when accused of a misdemeanor to do a

certain amount of community service hours. Secondly the aspect in which a judge calculates the

bail in how likely that person is to show up at court should be removed. This makes it so society

benefits from it for their labor and the people benefit, so they don’t have to get put into a jail for

a crime they haven’t committed yet. Also, this can help reduce the community service that a

person would have to do and make it a less complicated system. Now if some people don’t show

up for their court hearings, they will be assigned an actual bail amount which will force people to

go their hearings. The legal system shouldn’t have to be based on how much money a person

has. The purpose of a legal system is to make sure justice is served not to make a profit off

people. The current system set bail high on people who appear “to be potentially dangerous or

unlikely to appear for trial” (https://fedsoc.org). This directly benefits the “private bail insurance

companies” which is unconstitutional ((https://www.aclu.org). It is morally wrong to be making a

profit off of other people’s unfortunate situations.

The constitution has two amendments that are violated by current day bail practices. The

two amendments are the Fourteenth Amendment and The Eighth Amendment. The Fourth

Amendment guarantee “due process rights and equal protection” (https://www.aclu.org). The

current legal system doesn’t give equal protection to all as the system benefits the wealthy which

doesn’t give equal protection to all. The Eight Amendment is “the prohibition against excessive

bail” (https://www.aclu.org). The judges nowadays tend to set bails higher in which results in a

lot of people in who can’t pay it. The bail is not correctly calculated, and it shouldn’t depend on

how likely it is they will appear at court.

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This plan proposal is the best solution to the problem. Firstly, it doesn’t cost anything to

implement this system. The only people that are losing money are the private bail insurance

companies which doesn’t affect society. Secondly the benefits from this system will benefit

everyone. To make people serve community service will help the environment and can

potentially teach a lesson in that itself. Some people might find community service tedious in

which they wouldn’t want to waste their time again cleaning parks when they could’ve never got

themselves in that situation in the first place. This takes off the pressure of people because

instead of being incriminated they are serving community service which makes it less

intimidating while going through the legal process. This should be implemented like this so

people aren’t being incriminated for low offense crimes which can impact a person’s life as they

can miss work and won’t be able to provide for families if they have one. However, some people

think that “By eliminating the half-way house of money bail, bail reformers force judges to either

release or hold until trial.” (Tabarrok). The other half that thinks that by abolishing the money-

bail system that it will force judges to hold more people. But with this proposal it is cut clear and

simple: if you commit a misdemeanor you can’t be incriminated and are free to go home with the

small price of performing community service. This system forces judges to send people home.

This is the system that we need to keep people who have committed these small-scale crimes

from incrimination.

In the United States people who have committed low offense crimes shouldn’t have a

monetary bail set against them. Instead the implementation of a person serving community

service makes it, so it doesn’t affect the persons life who is accused for committing the crime.

Also, their community service benefits society as well. Instead of private bail insurance
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companies profiting off its society can benefit from it. This makes it so we don’t incriminate

poor people and or people who have committed a small crime which slides well in today’s legal

system. In the case that a person doesn’t show up for their court hearings they will be given an

actual monetary bail which will motivate people to attend their court hearings the first time

around. In today’s legal system it should benefit the people of America not a sector of financially

well-off people.
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Works Cited

Bail Reform, www.aclu.org/print-taxonomy/2596.

Tabarrok, Alex, et al. “We Cannot Avoid the Ugly Tradeoffs of Bail Reform.” Marginal

REVOLUTION, 12 Oct. 2018,

marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/10/happens-bail-reform-meets-

reality.html.

Feige, David, and Robin Steinberg. “Replacing One Bad Bail System With Another.” The New

York Times, The New York Times, 11 Sept. 2018,

www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/opinion/california-bail-law.html.

“As Bail Reform Progresses, Yes, Bail Is Constitutional.” The Federalist Society,

fedsoc.org/commentary/blog-posts/as-bail-reform-progresses-yes-bail-is-constitutional.