Journal of Student Research 2018

Journal Student Research

62

citizens of Alabama endure.

Section 16 of the Alabama Constitution (1901) states that the people of Alabama are given the right to bail before conviction, unless a capital offense has been committed, and that excessive bail “shall not in any case be required.” Similarly, rule 18(I)(A)(2)(B) of the Alabama Rules of Judicial Administration disallows courts from exceeding the cap set by the bail schedule, “unless approved by the court.” However, this is not happening, and bail continues to be set at unjust levels. Thus, citizens are either taking plea bargains, often for crimes not even committed, to get lesser sentencing, or they are avoiding the bail bond system altogether because it is not feasible for them to be able to pay (Wagner & Rabuy, 2016). If the defendant doesn’t pay, then they have to await their trial in jail. Each person awaiting trial in jails costs over sixty dollars per night at minimum, which leads up to about fourteen-billion taxpayer dollars spent just on people awaiting trial (“Bail in America,” n.d.). That doesn’t even account for those already sentenced or those sentenced to life without parole. This information alludes to the structural violence seen in the bail bond system. This policy analysis intends to review bail-setting procedures within Alabama’s judicial system and provide possible solutions to distinguish the structural violence present. In the United States approximately half a million people, or one in five individuals incarcerated, are in jails and prisons due to non-violent drug-related offenses (Wagner & Rabuy, 2016). The United States is also one of two countries in the world that has legalized bail bond industries thus allowing private businesses to intermingle with state and federal judicial systems, which has allowed for exploitation, more specifically structural violence (Kight, 2017). One state that is affected largely by the structural violence within the pretrial criminal process is Alabama; this is directly in connection to its bail schedule. The following table is Alabama’s bail schedule: Background