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Sign up to receive our newsletter and stay up to date on legislation initiatives, organization news and how NCBF is working to end cash bail and mass incarceration in the PNW.

June 2024 Community Newsletter

At NCBF, we are pro-free speech, pro-protest, and pro-Palestinian. The nationwide prevalence of protests may have waned since 2020 (the height of Black Lives Matter), but our support of protesters is as vital as ever!

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October 2023 Community Newsletter

A message from the retiring Executive Director Becky Errera. Here I am, in the earliest days of my retirement, looking back on my time with NCBF. It’s been quite a journey.

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Court Watch Campaign 2022 – Results are in!

The Northwest Community Bail Fund (NCBF) started court watching in 2020. In February 2022, we initiated a 60-day Court Watch campaign in the Seattle Municipal Court to galvanize support for our larger Court Watch program. This campaign ran from February through April...

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Meaningful Action: Ways to Get Involved

Whether you read our blog, donate to the bail fund, or volunteer with us, thank you for supporting NCBF’s work to bail people out of jail and one day end pre-trial detention. There are a variety of ways to get involved and help us push for systemic change. As you come...

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The Importance of Paying Bail

Getting arrested is an incredibly destabilizing and disruptive event with far reaching and long-term consequences. There is no dispute that pretrial incarceration disrupts one’s job, family life, places housing at risk, and results in trauma for the entire family,...

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We can’t stop now: The fight for systemic change

The murder of George Floyd by four police officers in May 2020 triggered civic unrest in America at a scale not seen since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. The resulting uprisings brought renewed and increased awareness to issues with policing,...

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The Danger of the Deserving/Non-Deserving Binary

What is NCBF’s mission? We believe in the presumption of innocence and work to end pre-trial detention. We seek to disrupt the criminal legal system that targets and punishes Black and Indigenous people and people of color. We believe that impacted communities are in...

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Bail 101

History of Bail Bail has its origins more than 1500 years ago in what is present day England. During that period, Anglo-Saxons shifted away from the Germanic tribal approach of physically violent retribution to a crime. This was replaced with payments (goods or money)...

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Word Choice Matters

Why does word choice matter when we talk about the criminal legal system? You can use different words to describe the same thing. For example, someone who mops the school hallways and takes out the trash might be called a “janitor” or a “custodial technician.” The...

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How to Support a Bill Online

Every day in Olympia, bills and legislation are debated and discussed that hold real impact on long term change in the criminal legal system.  At the bail fund, we are constantly keeping an eye on this and fighting with other organization to either stop a bill in its...

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“We the People” will speak: Pack the Court

We’re asking the community to show support for two defendants at the Pierce County Courthouse on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. Pierce County Courthouse: 930 Tacoma Avenue, 2nd floor The criminal legal system in America presumes that “the People,” or the...

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Breakdown: How Court-Ordered Fines Bury People in Debt

After a reform effort failed to reach the floor of the state Legislature this year, the fight continues to alleviate the burden that court-ordered fines and fees impose on indigent individuals. House Bill 1412 would have given courts discretion to eliminate all...

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Criminalizing Poverty Won’t “Solve” Homelessness

Across the country, cities are increasingly choosing to incorporate fines and arrests as part of the “solution” to the systemic issue of homelessness. Washington is no exception—in the past year a string of measures to ban overnight camping on city property were...

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Local Elections, Real Consequences: 2021 Election Guide

Last month we shared an overview of Juneteenth with a timeline of major events from the Civil War to present, and a post on two interrelated systems that propagate racism: voter suppression and mass incarceration. We encourage you to honor Juneteenth and the people...

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A History of Juneteenth: How Did We Get Here?

Juneteenth — originating in 1865 — celebrates the day that the last enslaved African Americans were declared free. Although the Emancipation Proclamation took effect over two years prior on January 1, 1863, not all African Americans were immediately liberated. Those...

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Pandemic Exposes the Flaws of the Criminal Legal System

According to the National Center for State Courts, the five most common ways courts are responding to COVID-19 are:   Restricting or ending jury trials   Restricting entrance to courthouses   Encouraging or requiring teleconferences or video conferences in lieu of...

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Why donate to a Bail Fund?

Northwest Community Bail Fund has been honored and awed by the incredible amount of support that has financed our recent growth and our ability to post bail for more people than ever before. With a 600 percent increase in our funds from 2020 to 2021 we were able to...

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Want to get involved in our Court Watch Program?

NCBF facilitates programs in King County and Pierce County to monitor court activity, gather data and help inform change to protect people from an abusive system.  You can get involved today to bring Court Watch to your county or join in current efforts.

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