Bail Burden Keeps U.S. Jails Stuffed With Inmates (NPR)

Two-thirds of the inmates in U.S. jails are petty, nonviolent offenders who are there for only one reason: They can't afford their bail. Sometimes, it's as little as $50. Some will wait behind bars for as long as a year before their cases make it to court. And it will cost taxpayers $9 billion this year to house them. The underlying problem is that the bail system exists almost exclusively to ...