What If We Ended the Injustice of Bail?

On any given night, more than 450,000 people in the United States are locked up in jail simply because they don't have enough money to pay bail. The sums in question are often around $500: easy for some to pay, impossible for others. This has real human consequences -- people lose jobs, homes and lives, and it drives racial disparities in the legal system.

This TED Talk makes some interesting points. What I found particularly interesting (and disturbing) was the claim that 90% of people who cannot afford to pay bail plead guilty, yet when the Bail Project paid bail and cases went to trial, 50% of those cases were dismissed, and less than 2% of those convicted at trial received a jail sentence.