The Winston-Salem Community Bail Fund was founded by a coalition of pastors and prison abolition activists to help mitigate the effects of cash bail on impoverished communities.

What’s so bad about cash bail?

Most people in the Forsyth County Jail are accused of minor crimes like probation or parole violation, failure to appear or comply, or larceny. These people can sit in jail for months awaiting trial not because they are a danger to society, but simply because they cannot afford to pay bail. This makes it harder to obtain adequate legal representation, harder to maintain employment and harder to take care of their families and loved ones, all of which make it more likely that a person will be convicted and make their life more difficult regardless of their trial outcome.

These people are not guilty until they have had a trial and been convicted, yet this system of pre-trial detention treats them as if they were simply because they cannot afford bail. The system of cash bail places an undue burden on people in poverty, treating them as criminals by default and incentivizing them to plead guilty simply to “get it over with.

Wow, that seems bad! What can we do about it?

We’re glad you asked! The Winston-Salem Community Bail fund was founded to post low-cost bail money to help people avoid pre-trial detention. The money we raise is used to post bail for people who can’t afford it, and when they show up to their court date the bail money goes back to the fund to use again.

What if these people are actually, you know, bad?

That’s what trials are for!

We focus on bailing out as many people as we can. In order to do so, we necessarily aim for people with the lower-cost bail first, which means that most people we post bail for will be accused of “minor” crimes. Guilt or innocence is not the issue; jailing people in poverty who have not yet had a trial or been convicted is.

Please help us attempt to alleviate the system of cash bail that criminalizes poverty and hurts those who can least afford it. Donate today!