It’s been a rough few months. As Americans embrace fascism at a national scale, and a genocide rages on in Palestine, many of us are still healing from our own personal traumas, large and small. It may seem especially difficult right now to continue focusing on a mission of abolition. Seeing clearly how much needs to change can feel heavy, even overwhelming.

But it’s through our honest, open-hearted understanding of what’s wrong in our world, and what a better one looks like, that our community will hold together through difficult times. A crisis can be painful, but also creates opportunities for new choices. And when those opportunities arise, we’ll be ready to build something new. Because we never stopped.

So as we come together this holiday season, we are thinking of the profound impact of pretrial detention—not only on the people held in jail, but on their families and especially their children. For many families, our wealth-based pretrial detention system means they will be missing a parent or loved one at their holiday table this year.

Such profound loss for families during this season underscores the urgent need for action. Whether we spend the season gathering with family, reflecting, or giving generously, let us recognize the critical role we all play in creating a more compassionate and just future.

 

Cash Bail Continues the Cycle of Poverty

For many of those in jail, the reality of paying bail has a devastating ripple effect on their family and financial future. Cash bail, which requires people to pay large sums upfront to secure their release before trial, often results in even more extreme poverty for those who are least able to afford it. This vicious cycle disproportionately impacts Black and brown families.

According to a report from the Prison Policy Initiative, the majority of people incarcerated pretrial are held simply because they can’t afford bail. As of 2015, people in jail had a median annual income of about $15,000 prior to their incarceration, which was less than half of the median for non-incarcerated people of similar ages. This trend holds true in Seattle where, as of 2021, 90% of people who came through Seattle Municipal Court on a misdemeanor were too poor to afford an attorney. Many individuals are jailed for months on end awaiting trial, simply because they can’t afford to pay a few thousand dollars. The financial burdens caused by cash bail fall heavily on the individuals’ families, entraping them in a vicious cycle of hardship.

Think of the impact on a family whose primary breadwinner is suddenly locked up. The inability to pay bail often means that a parent or caregiver is taken out of the workforce, leading to lost wages, missed bills, and mounting debt. Families may have to move, make sacrifices, and take out predatory loans to make ends meet. This often results in a downward financial spiral. The financial instability caused by cash bail can even lead to eviction and push families into homelessness.

Every stage of the criminal punishment system process is expensive and preys on the poor. People in jail face steep costs for basic necessities like phone calls, medical fees, and commissary items. Even people who are released before their trial can still experience significant strain, as they often have to pay nonrefundable fees to bail bond companies and cover costly charges for pretrial electronic monitoring.

And the toll doesn’t end when a person’s case is resolved. Even if someone is ultimately found not guilty or their charges are dropped, research shows that the damage to their family’s finances can affect the entire trajectory of their lives and future generations. Families can find themselves in deeper debt, with credit scores damaged, and in many cases, they may be forced to take out high-interest loans to recover from the financial blow.

The cash bail system makes our entire society poorer. It traps low-income families in further cycles of debt and instability, and it wastes resources that could be spent addressing the root causes of crime. According to The Bail Project, “American taxpayers spend $14 billion a year holding people in jail who have not been found guilty of a crime.” This system perpetuates inequality and deepens the struggles of the most vulnerable. Ending cash bail is not just a matter of justice—it’s a matter of survival for families.

 

Falling through the cracks: when a parent is in jail, children pay the price

It might surprise you to learn that more children are hurt by unaffordable money bail than adults. But for every adult unable to buy their freedom, a wave of harm and suffering ripples outward. An injustice that starts with one person has consequences for an entire network of dependents.

In 2018 our friends at the Prison Policy Initiative did a deep dive into the impact of unaffordable bail on families, and the numbers are sobering. The last time the federal government surveyed local jail populations nationally was in 2002, and at that time more than 150,000 children currently had at least one parent in jail because they couldn’t make bail. The number of people being held pretrial has soared since then, and a greater percentage of them are women, so we can assume that many more minors are affected today.

That number makes sense when we consider that more than half of the adults surveyed were the parent to a minor child. In other words, for every two people caught up by the criminal punishment system’s targeting of poverty, one of them is leaving behind a kid too young to survive on their own.

When we say one parent is in jail, it’s possible to imagine a young person missing their mom or dad, but otherwise going about their normal life. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Jailing a parent has a huge impact on the rest of the family.

First of all, the adults in a child’s life are their primary source for safe, secure housing. In a 2016 study cited by the Prison Policy Institute, over 40% of parents said that being held pretrial would impact the living situation for a child in their custody. Frequently, losing a parent means a child’s entire living situation turns upside down, forcing them into a new environment that may be much less stable than the one they left.

And the harms don’t end if the caregiver is ultimately released. Parental incarceration has been shown to have long-term negative effects on a child’s wellbeing. A 2011 study found that children of incarcerated parents were twice as likely to be described as having antisocial behavior by their parents and teachers, even after controlling for other factors such as poverty.

And this whole situation gets much worse when we realize that the criminal punishment system and the child welfare system are entangled. Of all the kids that entered foster care in 2022, 6% had “parental incarceration” listed as their direct reason for entry. Jails are not required to accommodate the “service plans” that child welfare agencies impose on families, and if parents do not make “meaningful progress” on their plan (which is often impossible in jail) reunification can be taken off the table entirely. Federal law actually mandates that states terminate parental rights if a child is out of their parent’s custody for too long during a child welfare case.

Putting this all together, we see the grim toll that unaffordable bail has on children. Our criminal punishment system is causing lasting harm, permanently breaking up families, and pushing children into insecurity. It’s an important reminder that when we fight to abolish systems of oppression, we’re fighting not just for the people directly caught up in a bureaucracy of harm, but also for the many people whose lives they touch. In an America where life is increasingly precarious, and the consequences of marginalization increasingly dire, we can’t afford to abandon the millions of children shouldering the burden of a failed system.

 

Headlines

🚔 Seattle cops celebrate the end of booking restrictions, plan to immediately increase arrests: For months, Seattle City Council and Mayor Bruce Harrell have been making a political issue out of booking restrictions at the downtown Seattle jail, which is run by King County. Those restrictions prevent people from being incarcerated for certain low-level offenses, and were put in place during the 2020 COVID pandemic, a time when many politicians (including current King County Executive Dow Constantine) pledged to reduce the use of incarceration in favor of more effective ways to address community safety.

Now, those restrictions have been lifted, and Seattle police plan to return to pre-pandemic practices of incarcerating people who are accused of misdemeanors. The King County Jail still reports 60 staff vacancies, and as King County Department of Public Defense Interim Director Matt Sanders pointed out to The Stranger, “jailing people pre-trial undermines public safety in many cases, and increases the chances that someone commits another crime.” Seattle agreed in September to pay roughly $4 million a year for the privilege of locking up more of its residents.

⛔️ Seattle City Attorney sued for barring judge from hearing criminal cases for being soft on crime: Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison’s office is being sued for preventing Judge Pooja Vaddadi from overseeing criminal misdemeanor cases, arguing the move undermines voters’ choices. The lawsuit claims that in February, the City Attorney’s Office ordered its staff to consistently make filings that removed Vaddadi, a newly elected judge, from her cases. City Attorney Davison’s staff claimed this action was because of bias and flawed rulings on the part of Judge Vaddadi, without providing specific case examples. This is another example of Ann Davison’s office’s tireless efforts to undo reforms and bully those they consider to be soft on crime. City Attorney Davison is one of the driving forces behind the recent banishment zones and has been aggressively pushing for more punitive responses to visible poverty and misdemeanors.

Filed by the ACLU of Washington, the suit represents the Washington Community Alliance and three Seattle voters. This lawsuit is fighting back against the City Attorney’s attempt to override the will of voters and sideline anyone who doesn’t agree with her ineffective and outdated “tough on crime” agenda.

💔 Second person this year dies at WA immigrant detention center: José Manuel Sanchez-Castro, a detainee at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), died in October after being denied proper medical treatment for opioid withdrawal. Despite being in medical isolation since his arrival, facility staff failed to transfer him to a hospital, violating ICE’s own standards for treating severe withdrawal symptoms. This is the second death this year at one of the largest immigrant detention centers in the country, highlighting the urgency to shut down the NWDC and end detentions and deportations in our state.

Please support and follow La Resistencia NW (@laresistencianw on Instagram) for updates and to join the movement to shut down this detention center.

 

Stay Inspired

We asked members of our NCBF community what music or media helps keep them inspired, educated, and fired up. Here are a few of their answers!

📚 Six by Ten: Stories from Solitary edited by Taylor Pendergrass and Mateo Hoke

“I recently finished Six by Ten which is a collection of interviews with people who have lived experience with solitary confinement. Some of the stories are heartbreaking, but others really show the depth of human strength and resilience! And I learned a lot about the state of America’s criminal punishment system.” －Lily, Donor Team Volunteer

🎸 Change the World by Eric Clapton

“It means so much to me because I think that if everyone led with heart over head, didn’t look at leadership roles as just power positions, walked with humility – it’s a song of humility to me. It’s telling someone how much you love them and appreciate them and calling them into your space.” －Board Member DeAunte Damper

And I can change the world
I will be the sunlight in your universe
You would think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world

🎶 Crazy, Classic, Life by Janelle Monáe

“It’s just so powerful, this song, because I feel like it’s a song that celebrates freedom…I think she was able to capture the joy of actually being free.” －Pita, Intake Team Volunteer

We don’t need another ruler
All of my friends are kings
I’m not America’s nightmare
I’m the American dream
Just let me live my life