UPDATE: MAY 18, 2020: The Massachusetts Bail Fund is pleased to announce that in addition to continuing to process requests for bail from the Middleton House of Corrections, we are now able to accept requests for bail for women held at the South Bay House of Correction AND that we have raised our bail limit to $2000 or less.
Effective May 4, 2020, the Massachusetts Bail Fund will partially re-open, to requests for bail for people incarcerated at the Middleton House of Correction only. We will be accepting requests for bails of $1000 or lower for ALL of May 2020 in order to assess whether MBF can financially support that limit permanently.
We suspended our operations mid-March because the bail posting process in Massachusetts forces prolonged in-person interactions with facilities and people where exposure to COVID-19 is a certainty. Massachusetts jails and prisons are among the hardest hit in the United States. People in prisons and jails cannot practice social distancing and do not have access to adequate sanitation supplies or medical care. Judges and DAs who send people to jail and prison during this pandemic are prolonging and exacerbating the risk of infection. They are sentencing people to sickness and death.
Yet, people are still being held pretrial by Judges and DAs. These people will remain incarcerated until their cases close, a time frame that has been increased artificially as our courts are closed and people do not have access to trials. It is therefore the responsibility of that same system to ensure a safe and contactless process for release.
On April 1, the Chief Justice of the Trial Court issued Emergency Order 20-6: Temporary Alternative Procedures for Bail Magistrates and Bail Commissioners Setting and Taking Bail After Court Hours During the COVID-19 Pandemic. This voluntary directive allows for bail commissioners to accept and process bail payments virtually by using money transfer apps like Paypal and Venmo and digital signatures. Because this is a voluntary directive, it is up to the discretion of each bail commissioner, most of whom unfortunately have not embraced the new process. A system for virtual bail payments MUST be accessible to anyone who would take advantage of such a system. For families or friends who cannot pay bail virtually, low contact systems must be created. MBF is committed to pushing for those while the pandemic continues.
The Essex County House of Correction and the bail commissioners who process bail payments have adopted a virtual bail bail payment and pre-trial release system. We are therefore extremely pleased to be able to re-open in Essex County in order to start getting people free again. We commend the staff and bail commissioners for adopting this directive and working to ensure a safe and contactless process for release from the Essex County House of Corrections. We hope that the success of this new process will serve as a model for other counties by demonstrating that bail payments in Massachusetts can be safe, secure, and guaranteed.
Families, advocates, friends, and community organizers who post bail under a pandemic are being forced to put themselves, their families, loved ones, and the community at large at great risk to free loved ones from cages. It is essential that we place the responsibility for creating these dangerous situations on the system itself. Judges who set bail, DAs who ask for bail, and counties who do not accommodate contactless bail payments, are all prolonging this pandemic and putting their communities at risk.
Everyone in our jails and prisons are safer once released. People can be in their homes, isolating with their families, receiving any medical treatment they may need. And for our community members who do not have a safe place to isolate, we must do better for them. We support and uplift the demands of advocates to meet people’s survival needs, fund housing in hotels and vacant housing, and invest in housing and healthcare for our community OUTSIDE of jails and prisons.
We suspended our operations mid-March because the bail posting process in Massachusetts forces prolonged in-person interactions with facilities and people where exposure to COVID-19 is a certainty. Massachusetts jails and prisons are among the hardest hit in the United States. People in prisons and jails cannot practice social distancing and do not have access to adequate sanitation supplies or medical care. Judges and DAs who send people to jail and prison during this pandemic are prolonging and exacerbating the risk of infection. They are sentencing people to sickness and death.
Yet, people are still being held pretrial by Judges and DAs. These people will remain incarcerated until their cases close, a time frame that has been increased artificially as our courts are closed and people do not have access to trials. It is therefore the responsibility of that same system to ensure a safe and contactless process for release.
On April 1, the Chief Justice of the Trial Court issued Emergency Order 20-6: Temporary Alternative Procedures for Bail Magistrates and Bail Commissioners Setting and Taking Bail After Court Hours During the COVID-19 Pandemic. This voluntary directive allows for bail commissioners to accept and process bail payments virtually by using money transfer apps like Paypal and Venmo and digital signatures. Because this is a voluntary directive, it is up to the discretion of each bail commissioner, most of whom unfortunately have not embraced the new process. A system for virtual bail payments MUST be accessible to anyone who would take advantage of such a system. For families or friends who cannot pay bail virtually, low contact systems must be created. MBF is committed to pushing for those while the pandemic continues.
The Essex County House of Correction and the bail commissioners who process bail payments have adopted a virtual bail bail payment and pre-trial release system. We are therefore extremely pleased to be able to re-open in Essex County in order to start getting people free again. We commend the staff and bail commissioners for adopting this directive and working to ensure a safe and contactless process for release from the Essex County House of Corrections. We hope that the success of this new process will serve as a model for other counties by demonstrating that bail payments in Massachusetts can be safe, secure, and guaranteed.
Families, advocates, friends, and community organizers who post bail under a pandemic are being forced to put themselves, their families, loved ones, and the community at large at great risk to free loved ones from cages. It is essential that we place the responsibility for creating these dangerous situations on the system itself. Judges who set bail, DAs who ask for bail, and counties who do not accommodate contactless bail payments, are all prolonging this pandemic and putting their communities at risk.
Everyone in our jails and prisons are safer once released. People can be in their homes, isolating with their families, receiving any medical treatment they may need. And for our community members who do not have a safe place to isolate, we must do better for them. We support and uplift the demands of advocates to meet people’s survival needs, fund housing in hotels and vacant housing, and invest in housing and healthcare for our community OUTSIDE of jails and prisons.
Massachusetts must #FreeThemAll. Until then, we are happy to open in Essex County and hope to expand in the future as bail commissioners adopt this practice statewide.