new yorkers and in particular those from poor neighborhoods that is the need for comprehensive bill reform first in case you don't know let me explain how bell generally works in new york city when a person is arrested they appear before a criminal court judge to be  arraigned out of arraignment almost half of those cases are resolved with a plea or the case being dismissed for the rest the judge has the choice of releasing a person on their own recognizance or called r r without requiring any money to be paid or setting bail this is where the problem lives with these cases here's a little bit more about what happens next and why it's a major issue form a national crisis that's hidden in plain sight the whole purpose of bail was to give an individual who's been arrested and accused but who is presumed innocent a way to get out of jail and so the idea originally was if we make you pay some money you'll have an incentive to come back to court and you won't want to fish and or get into trouble because you're going to lose that money instead of it being that it has morphed into this industry w have commercial bail bondsmen and i'm now out of money that individuals are required to pay in order to to get out of jail has just become extremely high we think that ban will instant great interrupt her when it comes to resolving criminal matters and it has a very negative impact on all individuals but particularly for people of color my guess what today show is assemblyman dan quart who represents the seventy third assembly district and karen lee george the new york state campaign coordinator we're just leadership usa and thank you both for being here today the issue of bail reform i think we both we were all agree that it's an important issue to address and i thank you both what you're both individually doing to address this issue so for the viewers to understand who you are from your agency and from your perspective assembly member can tell us a little about yourself and why did you pick up this issue yes thank you thank you for bringing this attention to light into your viewers attention i've been representing a midtown manhattan on the upper east side in the state legislature for the seven for the last seven years but i also serve in a different capacity as an attorney in private practice i'm on the cit eighteen be indigent defendant panel where i represent individuals in criminal court mostly in manhattan and have so for the last two years in the midst of minor part and it's both my experience as a legislature but more my experience in court that i have seen the great inequity of our bell i sponsored legislation to truly reform this to rid our system of cash bail but also to make major changes because there are certain there are certain truths about our bell system that we have to understand to reform one is that nearly sixty seven or two out of three people who are incarcerated in this state are incarcerated through the bail process what that means in lay terms is that people who have never been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of anything are essentially languishing in county jails county jails like rikers island and until we make major reforms in our bail system that will continue it's important we talk about closing rikers island they're building smaller prisons throughout new york city and that's an important step but it's a more important st talk about reform of our bail process that sends less people to county jail in the first place that's where the real reform will be and from my experience in the courtroom and as a legislature that's what i'm working to try and do so so this our viewers understand your perspective if i can help decode it not only are you a legislator looking to enact laws to change bill you're actually in the trenches on the front lines see how it affects your clients i certainly have and i've partaken in when you sit in any of the manhattan criminal courts whether the midtown community court in the west fifty's or any of the misdemeanor parts at one hundred center street time and time again you see a very difficult in an unfortunate situation what you see is the punishment of poverty it can't be stated in any other way poor people disproportionately people of color who are adversely affected by a money belt system because the way bail works is unless you're financially secure unless you have capital you're likely unable to get a bail bond so whether bail is set at two hundred fifty dollars or twenty five thousand dollars for poor person it's all the same it's a one way trip to rikers island and that is part of the problem part of the problem my own clients have experience criminal courts flowing but your district you cover a district that simply does not see the same type of demographics so you're doing the right thing what was the motivation for picking up this fight i do represent one hand in the upper east side and but i think my constituents understand inequity in stand for reelection this year so i hope they'll be supportive of my efforts also i did grow up in washington heights lived for my first seventeen years on a hundred ninety third street in st nicholas avenue and it is a problem of poverty but it's also geographic base you're right not all crimes are prosecuted the same way we saw it at a city council hearing i think last month on marijuana arrests the city unfortunately has not been doing a good job in continuing meron marijuana arrests and to some extent prosecutions as well and i think if you look at the data it is not the arrests happen in various geographic areas but probably at a higher rate in areas like the community board twelve area than they do in districts like mine so you get from your friends in washington and we thank you for picking up this issue for not just not just our district but for all of manhattan and all of new york thank you so i'm going to ask you to speak about a couple things that the somebody members spoke about but tell us or tell us the wonderful things that are being done to just leadership usa thank you  includes folks who are detained pretrial in jail folks who are currently sentenced in prison and folks that are on post release supervision probably are probation we take a really bold stance and bold model to our reform our legislative reform efforts and leadership building efforts as are our campaigns are really driven by our membership folks who are directly impacted by mass incarceration the majority of stuff that just leadership usa are also directly impacted either justice involved themselves or with family members and close loved ones and so when we talk about policy reform and when we build our campaigns including the free new york campaign we really look at what sort of systemic transformation needs to happen to de car sorry our jails to reduce racial disparities in the system and to transform the system  so the free new york campaign is fighting to overhaul bail discovery and speedy trial laws in new york to address the state wide jails crisis that we're really experiencing you know rikers island we yorkers held in county jails across the state on any given day nearly seventy percent of those folks are being detained pretrial so they're legally innocent they've been charged or arrested charged but not convicted of the crime that they've been accused and we know that detention pretrial has really significant negative impacts on quality of life and on case outcomes and bail is a central issue in a central driver  detention assembly member you spoke regarding your personal experiences as a litigator and as well as a legislator on the collateral facts on an individual who cannot be a bill said by a judge what could understand one of the real impacts of of a person not be able to meet bill job loss of fiction terrible socio economic conditions think about it mostly the incarceration level in somewhere between seventy eight hundred ninety one hundred people in rikers island they're mostly men of color emote a lot of these individuals these men are wage earners as part of their family they will likely be terminated from their employment they may be part of a family unit that is in a rent stabilized unit or maybe they're in a non regulated either way the income they have from their job goes to pay the rent that's of paraded to because they've likely lost their job this is a pathway towards a fiction it's a pathway for an entire family unit possibly eviction as well there are deep socio economic detriments to our bail system it's not just the individual it's the entire family unit and in fact it's entire communities broken apart by a system of incarceration of people who have been proven not who have not been proven guilty of anything at that point of that so i think viewers and your viewers hopefully they do understand but they understand our current system exacerbates poverty in that is the true essence of the problem as i see it every one of the other an attorney myself a litigator handles a good amount of family law cases one of start by saying it's been a real pleasure to work with something on record on this issue because of you know specifically what we're talking about that reform isn't reform just a name bail reform isn't reform because you call it that r is to address the collateral consequences of a very entrenched system you know entrenched criminalization and punishment you know the assembly members at attention and dedication of that is really essential we need our elected leaders to be considerate in their efforts to move forward and to partner with groups like just leadership usa you know concretely when we talk about the impacts  of bail on on people and of on their case you know i think i think it's helpful to sometimes certain really specific examples and so i'll share you know i'm sure from my own personal experience i have a close family member that is is currently incarcerated and has been just so symbolic for the majority of of his life and time and time again you know we see that you know a person is arrested we know that people are arrested for things that they have or haven't done or perceived to have done their they then bail set or are are like you mentioned and they're you know bail and this is something that i really didn't understand in till i was in my twenty's i assume that veil was put into place as a way to detain as a mechanism to put someone in jail as punishment when really we're talking about something that's legally supposed to be a mechanism for release and so when someone is forced to spend time in jail pretrial a they are you know people their case their ability to engage with their attorney to have transparent conversations is really threatened you also have to think about the conditions in jails right if you are trying to build a case trying to protect your constitutional rights to due process and individualized justice but what you're dealing with is the trauma and the immediate the immediate situation that being in jail creates you are less able to show up and be present in conversations with your attorney and share information and then concretely you know the implications for judges for jurors of someone coming to a court right  in potentially in shackles with a twenty five thousand dollar bail like we're saying with a two million dollar bail that communicate something tacitly about that person's guilt so they really don't have a fair shot at justice when we're setting bail in a way that communicates so you gave us a lot to talk about and a lot to think about and the one thing i want to get to very quickly is this concept of it's not just enough to call the bail reform we system the culture of the prosecution and the prosecution's office and how they set the tone for bail are judges and the implications of bail to the person's guilt or innocence do you have an opinion on this  do look at it will look at them in a historical lens how is it that in almost a quarter century of decreasing rates of crime that we have an increase in rates of pretrial detention that's an unconquerable thing to think about and you really have to be honest about why that is in from my perspective there's two major things going on here one is consistent overcharging by district attorney's office it's called up charging in that district attorneys with incredible latitude on what to charge or charging often on the highest count where the evidence may not exactly reach that highest count and a judge twenty four hours after the arrest can only consider that high charge so that is part of the problem the second part of the problem is a statute which gives judges essentially unfettered discretion in making analysis based upon that higher up charge and let's be honest judges are no different than lawyers or legislators or lay people we all have our biases and in many books in law review articles have been written about subjective implicit biases and that exists in our courtroom today so it is a somewhat toxic cocktail if you will of up charging discretion run amok and that's why we need statutory reform that limits that discretion because there's less we can do on bail about limiting the ability of district attorneys to up charge that will be a different reform for a different day and also  spoke about eloquently in the past and to your viewers there needs to be a change of culture change of culture in our district attorney's office amongst our criminal justice system about dealing with not only the culture of who we charge how we charge people what the charges will be so there's some level of equity all these things have to change but we can start with a bail statute that really will make a difference in limiting discretion in setting forth what is and what is not a fair bail so i think it's important that you  as a practitioner also the fundamental purpose of bail is to secure someone's attendance at a court that's the purpose but what is it turned into is sort of like it's indicative of guilt and it almost requires someone to bar their way out of that  intended as a form of punishment it's been misconstrued over the last fifty years as a form of punishment but to aaron's point the amount of bail set you have to return to court may be in shackles or  sets almost it rids a person of his or her presumption of innocence and it makes it impossible almost to get a fair trial be on individuals languishing for thirty sixty ninety days in rikers island show you know as a matter of  course think about these individuals they're from poor communities they probably don't have a family network and they don't know the evidence against them they're sitting in rikers island with with little attention on their case they'll take a plea whether they are guilty of the crime or not and then they become one of the sixty eight million americans with criminal records and that is a terrible system it's unjust and certainly punishes people in poverty unfortunately as a litigator in the trenches that is a you see that happening yeah i mean i think that you know there's something on her name something really important that is our jail system in pretrial detention and what pretrial detention which is really the driver the fuel for mass incarceration is the result of a system great system that we often try to attack and chip away at piece by piece and it's important to identify the core drivers of pretrial detention it's just as important to lift up the system that is driving this culture that we're talking about our bail system works with our broken discovery law in new york which works with a ineffective in irrational speedy trial law to create a system that keeps people in jail perpetuates the perpetuates current the criminal justice system and allows really like broad criminalization to continue and i think that you know culture shifting culture is the ultimate goal our goal is to be a society that prioritizes punishment discrimination believes isolation and and torture are the solutions to public safety or do we want a do we want to system that prioritizes people being home that prioritizes the real solutions to public safety which are networks community family you know there are a lot of solutions and many of those solutions the real solutions fall far outside the solutions fall outside of the criminal justice system that's what shifts culture and it's you know critical that our legislative reforms work to put that our legislative reforms consider the long term cultural shift that we're working towards and persuasive platforms individually and collectively i would ask from a community point of view that you both advocate for cultural sensitivity at the disco tourney's level the prosecution level as well as judges so they have to understand the folks coming before them and that's something that we can discuss at a time but something i think is necessary so the governor has this bill before i think you're both aware of it there are a some some highlights to the reform and then i believe it falls short some other points including  while some of the aspects of the governor's proposal are positive on the whole it falls far short of my standard of true reform and it's not something i could support in its current form some of the problems with the governor's proposal are the ability of prevent to preventive detention accepting a standard of dangerousness that i simply don't agree with because in ease synonymous with subjective bias and disproportionately adversely affects people of color and lastly one element which which violates basic due process in my view or fairness more accurately is that it allows for a five day automatic detention simply on the prosecutor's request or most likely sit on the prosecutor's request for a five day pretend preventive detention i could never support something like that and i think it is antithetical to many of the things we've been talking about to your viewers in the last fifteen twenty minutes would you portion regarding what is bail and bills about bail is about ensuring somebody is returned to court it is not about somebody subject to bias that the charge somebody was arrested for on probable cause is what what a person actually has done there is a presumption of innocence and to allow any sort of preventive detention where we know their subjective bias runs afoul of those basic principles it's not something i could support and i would hope the legislature would reject it outright do you believe do you agree with  it is incomplete naturally would result in significant harm you know we there are baselines to bail reform hard lines that have to be met any anything that falls short of those hard lines  and of those baselines is not reform per the individuals who are impacted you know any bail or form house to house to prioritize freedom and has to  significant lead to car straight and significantly decrease racial disparities in the system it has to prioritize individualized justice saying guarantee due process and we don't see those outcomes with the governor's proposal  you know currently it would expand it would expand the preventative detention there's a lot of terminology and bail reform that i think often isn't demystified you know the so pretrial detention right is someone being detained before they've been convicted and then preventative detention is someone being detained pretrial without a way out to remain and someone to pretrial detention for five days just the simple request of the prosecutor is incredibly problematic we know that a lot of these collateral consequences that we're talking about can happen in one to three days someone being remanded at the snap of the fingers of a prosecutor and being held in an upstate county jail in on rikers island means that they can lose their housing they lose their job they may you know become involved in the family court system and have a c s involvement if we're talking about solutions that support public safety we need to talk about  solutions support stabilizing individuals lives and jail does the exact opposite so in fact it works at odds with these with stated goals of advancing public safety so tell me if you can give me your one highlight of your wish list so in a way that addresses and drastically reduces racial and socio economic disparities in the system so if something member you have a bill as well as it could you give us a fifteen second sort of oh why what is your  bill or my bill would eliminate bell altogether and that's my personal view that bell is a flawed and failed model that is discriminatory nature but i think for what i would find acceptable in a reform package you would have to have two things one all misdemeanors all violations and all nonviolent felonies and even some felonies mischaracterized as violent which are not violent in fact would have to be release or release under non monetary conditions which means no bail for those categories of crime and secondly on a risk risk of flight analysis we would have to wipe away from the statute as much as many standards or words that are indicative of subjective biases possible because we know it exists so we have to wipe away from the statute as many words that would allow for unfortunately subjective bias to come into play to make the analysis only about risk  flight without those two things i could not support any any bill reform bill this is a great topic this is an absolutely wonderful topic it's a relevant topic for all new yorkers i encourage and applaud both of you for the work you're doing but this is what we  neighborhood network good