Every night, there are 450,000 human beings awaiting trial in U.S. jail cells solely because they cannot make a payment. We challenge wealth-based detention and promote anti-carceral alternatives to human caging that are less restrictive, more effective, and grounded in holistic community engagement and empowerment. Our work has freed tens of thousands of people from jail cells, helped to elevate the issue of money bail into the popular consciousness, and is setting precedent that will forever change the bail-setting process in the United States
On February 5, 2018, the Atlanta City Council unanimously voted to end wealth-based detention in Atlanta's Municipal Court.
Civil Rights Corps and the Southern Center for Human Rights are litigating a landmark challenge to the unconstitutional money bail system in Calhoun, Georgia. Our client, Maurice Walker, was jailed for six days solely because he could not pay less than $200 after he was arrested for being a pedestrian under the influence of alcohol.
In January 2018, the California Court of Appeal issued one of the best and most thorough opinions in American history on the subject of bail. The court granted a writ of habeas corpus to our client, 63-year-old Kenneth Humphrey and, in the process, wrote an opinion that revolutionizes bail setting in California.
On average, there are 1500 fewer people in the Cook County jail each night as a result of this litigation.
In August 2017, Civil Rights Corps moved to intervene in a federal class action lawsuit against officials in Cullman County, Alabama who operate an unconstitutional bail system.
In January 2018, Civil Rights Corps sued Dallas County, challenging their policy of detaining impoverished individuals charged with misdemeanors and felonies for days and weeks without ever seeing a judge. Our clients include a transgender woman who is experiencing homelessness and lives in a tent outside of Dallas.
Our challenge to the money bail system in Harris County is the seminal challenge to the assembly line wealth-based detention that pervades local American courts.
Civil Rights Corps filed two class-action lawsuits against the City of Houston and Harris County, Texas, for illegally detaining thousands of people every year for extended time periods after arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
In June 2017, Civil Rights Corps filed a federal class action lawsuit challenging the unconstitutional money bail system in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana. Our client and named Plaintiff, Edward Little, lives on a farm with his wife and two children in Carencro, Louisiana.
Civil Rights Corps is supporting partners in Ohio to pursue bail reform, starting with a court rule that could change how Ohio sets bail. Read our comment letter to the Ohio Supreme Court here, explaining how the proposed amendments could be clarified and strengthened.
In 2017, Civil Rights Corps filed a landmark federal class action lawsuit challenging the unconstitutional money bail system in New Orleans, Louisiana. Each of our clients was confined in the notorious Orleans Parish Prison because he could not afford to pay a money bond after his arrest.
In May 2017, Civil Rights Corps filed a federal class action lawsuit challenging the unconstitutional money bail system in Randolph County, Alabama.