On Father’s Day, Jay Z published an op-ed on the injustice of the profitable bail bond industry.
http://time.com/4821547/jay-z-racism-bail-bonds/
In the Time magazine article, he reflects on the fathers who have spent Father’s Day away from the children because they could not afford bail.
“If you’re from neighborhoods like the Brooklyn one I grew up in, if you’re unable to afford a private attorney, then you can be disappeared into our jail system simply because you can’t afford bail,” Jay Z wrote. “Millions of people are separated from their families for months at a time — not because they are convicted of committing a crime, but because they are accused of committing a crime.”
He goes on to describe that families are forced to take on more debt, often in predatory lending schemes which are created by bail bond insurers. If the family does not take out a bail bond, the result is that their loved ones sit in jail sometimes for months or years as a consequence of the nationwide backlogs.