North Carolina Interfaith Cash Bail Reform Committee (NC ICBRC)
NCICCBR is staffed by a group of Wake County church member volunteers who work on cash bail bond reform as educators and advocates. Starting as a “Do Justice” initiative in Community UCC in 2018, the group has expanded to include members from several other churches in Wake County and is now a project under the auspices of the NC Council of Churches.
Our goal is to build a multifaith, multicultural, diverse, community-led group which educates the public and decision makers as to the injustices of the present system, identifies proven alternatives and advocates for change. We believe people of faith, once they understand the current injustices, will be motivated to educate and advocate for reform in their local judicial district and statewide to replace for-profit cash bail with pretrial release programs and other alternatives which preserve public safety and do not incarcerate people simply because they cannot afford bail.
The immoral NC for-profit cash bail system extracts money from people while they await trial for low level, non-violent crimes, sometimes for weeks or months. It does not keep communities safer, cash bail is only intended to ensure people charged with a crime show up for their court date. People who are a threat to others can be detained without bail. Forcing people of low wealth to pay a non refundable fee to a bail bondsman for a low level crime just makes their lives harder and provides no benefit to the community. It is one reason jails are overcrowded and is the most expensive way to deal with nonviolent, low level offenders who represent the vast majority of people charged with a crime.
North Carolina Council of Churches
As part of the N.C. Bail Reform Working Group, the Council has created a network of faith leaders (lay and clergy) across the state who are taking a dual approach to cash bail. While working to educate the public and mobilize for policy change, they are also posting bail for those who qualify in order to mitigate the deleterious effects of the current system.
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