Punishing Poverty: Cash Bail in Allegheny County

On October 24, 2019 the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania released a report entitled Punishing Poverty: Cash Bail in Allegheny County, an analysis of two years of dockets to examine bail practices in Allegheny County. According to the report, while the county has made slight progress over the past year in reducing its reliance on cash bail, cash bail was still set in 28% of initial bail assignments from February through June 2019. Moreover, an extraordinarily high number of people charged with minor offenses were assigned cash bail.

The report concludes with a call for magistrates, police, and the district attorney to commit to ending the use of cash bail in Allegheny County.