Bail System Analysis

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When it comes to the criminal justice system there must be clear guidance that is reviewed/reformed when it is no longer meeting the needs of American citizens. This includes the preventive detention and bail systems. In order to identify the failures of the current system, it is necessary to find out how and why they failed in order to guide the reforming process. The articles below do three things to help identify what actions need to take place to reform these systems in a positive way, they show what the system was intended to do, how/why it has failed, and how it can be fixed.

Preventive Detention before Trial. (1966). Harvard Law Review, 79(7), 1489-1510.

In this Harvard Law Review, the author attempts to describe the problem with
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These claims are backed up with historical data that supports this point of view. This article fits in with the “Preventive Detention before Trial” and “The Necessity of Bail Reform” articles because they all provide information on how ineffective and misused the preventive detention and bail system is. additionally the other article “Bail Systems” explains the how this system was intended to work and the many reforms it has undergone over the …show more content…
Robert Sigler and William Formby make a case for the need for the bail process to be reformed. The argument is that the original idea behind the use of bail, ensuring that the defendant would show up to on his/her court date, is no longer how it’s used in practice, which has made it ineffective and interferes with administering justice. The real effect of bail is it keeps the poor detained until the trial date while wealthy individuals whether they are a risk or not, can afford the pay the bail. Additionally, detaining an individual that has not been convicted of a crime is to deprive them of their civil liberties afforded to them by the Fifth

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