A Critical Resistance Donor Webinar, July 2017
Thanks to years of visionary and bold organizing, the demands to abolish money bail and systems of bond are hitting mainstream conversations and making their way to legislation. We spent an hour with some amazing organizers and organizations discussing bail reform as it relates to abolition as a vision and a practice. Speakers highlighted campaigns and efforts to reform the bail system as a step towards getting people free and abolishing imprisonment. CR started the conversation with a summary of how we have advocated and demanded bail reform in our No New Jails campaigns, and then offered some guiding principles from our new “Key Points on Bail Reform” flyer.
Featured Speakers
Chicago Community Bond Fund: The Chicago Community Bond Fund (CCBF) is a revolving fund that will pay bond for people charged with crimes in Cook County, engage in education about the role of bond in the criminal legal system, and advocate for the abolition of money bond.
Mary Hooks, Southerners On New Ground (SONG): Mary is currently co-director of SONG and was one of the visionaries and lead organizers behind the Black Mama’s Bail Out Actions, which freed 64 Black women and caregivers in the South on Mother’s Day 2017. This effort sparked a national Mama’s Bail Out Day which freed 100 people across the country and is gaining momentum for Father’s Day with the next National Bail Out Day effort.
Lily Fashi- Haskell, Critical Resistance: As CR’s Campaign Director, Lily has supported the No New San Francisco Jail and the Los Angeles No More Jails Coalitions lead campaigns to stop jail expansion with core demands to reduce the number of people imprisoned, reform bail and end pretrial detention.Here are some resource for further learning and action on Bail and Bond Reform and Abolition that our speakers offered:
- Transformative Bail Reform Toolkit, released by Movement for Black Lives
- No More Money Bail website
- Ten Lessons Learned from the Black Mamas Bail Out Action, by SONG
- Too Many People in Jail? Abolish Bail – a New York Times editorial by CCBF founding member Maya Schenwar
Learn more about SONG and CCBF!
Check out more Critical Resistance Donor Calls & Webinars here.