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Page 8 The Skanner January 31, 2018 News Rep. Danny Davis (D-Illinois) Introduces Bail Reform Bill Davis’ bill seeks to alleviate some of the financial burdens and inequities associated with money bail rest is now $10,000, while the Federal Reserve has found that nearly half of Americans would be un- By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA Newswire Contributor) “ FREDDIE ALLEN/AMG/NNPA D uring a recent press conference on Capitol Hill, Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) said that at any given time there are roughly 500,000 people sitting in local jails wait- ing for their day in court. “These are people who have been charged with a crime, but are not convicted,” said Da- vis. “Many of the people waiting in jail are forced to wait, simply because they cannot afford to post bail.” On January 18, Davis introduced the Bail Fair- ness Act of 2018 to allevi- ate some of the burdens associated with the cash bail system. The Chicago congress- man was joined on Cap- itol Hill by Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Dwight Evans (D-Pa.) and Chicago business- man and philanthro- pist Dr. Willie Wilson. The four of them were flanked by two large posters; one poster read: “Taxpayers Spend $17 billion on Pre-trial De- tentions”; the other post- er simply said, “Bail Fail” in large letters. Wilson said that he has paid the bails of non-violent Cook County Corrections in- mates who were too poor to bail themselves out. Davis’ legislation would require states Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) recently held a press conference to introduce the “Bail Fairness Act of 2018” on Capitol Hill. to release individuals charged with a non-vi- olent misdemeanor on non-monetary condi- tions prior to their court date. Civil rights groups and lawmakers are increas- ingly putting pressure on businesses operating in the cash bail system and becoming more vo- cal about problems in the industry. As more cities begin to do away with the cash bail practice, some feder- al legislators are taking notice. Senators Kama- la Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) have voiced similar concerns regarding the problems of money bail in the Sen- ate. In September 2017, Harris joined with Re- publican Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on the Pre- trial Integrity and Safe- ty Act. The bill would overhaul America’s bail system just as Rep. Davis’ legislation hopes to do. A May 2017 report by Color of Change and the ACLU entitled, “Selling Off Our Freedom: How Insurance Corporations Have Taken Over Our Bail System,” outlined the for-profit incentives behind the bail system in America. The report revealed that there are fewer than 10 companies in- volved in the adminis- tration of over $14 bil- lion in bonds posted by for-profit bail each year. The bail industry collects approximately $2 billion in profit, an- nually. “The result of bail corporations’ control is that millions of peo- ple are no longer free: people stuck in jail and families stuck in debt to create profit for these corporations,” the re- port read. The study also pointed out that, “the national median for bail for a felony ar- of bail was to serve as an incentive to return to court when a person is arrested, released, Many of the people waiting in jail are forced to wait simply, because they cannot afford to post bail able to pay for an unex- pected expense of $400.” The United States re- mains number one in the world in the rate of incarceration, with over two million people be- hind bars, in large part, because poor people are unable to pay their way out of incarceration. The money bail system dis- proportionately impacts the poor. There are cur- rently over 43 million Americans living under the poverty line; nearly 30 percent of African Americans live in pov- erty. “The original purpose and their case proceeds. However, the current money bail system has little to do with this orig- inal intent…people with money can almost always buy their way to free- dom, regardless of the charges against them,” wrote ACLU Deputy Na- tional Political Director Udi Ofer on December 11, 2017. Rep. Davis has contin- ued to focus on justice reform issues during his 20 years in Congress. Da- vis’ “Second Chance Act” was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007. The legis- lation assisted formerly incarcerated individuals to successfully re-enter society. In November 2016, after his 15-year-old grandson was murdered in Chicago, Rep. Davis pushed for more funding for neighborhoods strug- gling with poverty. His focus was on the “10-20- 30” policy proposed by South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn. The “10-20-30” plan would focus cash on 10 percent of all govern- ment funding to be allo- cated to areas where 20 percent of the residents have lived in poverty for over 30 years. Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent jour- nalist, political analyst and contributor to the NNPA Newswire and BlackPressUSA.com. She can be reached by email at LBurke007@gmail. com and on Twitter at @ LVBurke. Chicago Public Schools Working to Close Achievement Gap Students in Chicago Public Schools Learning Faster than their Peers By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire Con- tributor) S tudents in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) sys- tem are learning faster than just about A career you can be proud of. Being a carpenter isn’t just a job. It’s a way of life. We’re devoted to strengthening the lives of our members with steady work, wealth and personal growth. We take a stand for our members and all workers. We work together to lead the building industry in safety, training and compensation. 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Reardon based his analysis on 300 million elementary school test scores covering more than 11,000 school dis- tricts. “I don’t think CPS is doing anything extraor- dinary or special for parent engagement, but it may be worth pointing out that we’re suddenly leading the nation in stu- dent growth and our kids of color are outperform- ing comparable kids of color across the state,” said Marilyn Rhames, the founder of the non- profit Teachers Who Pray and a veteran teach- er in Chicago. Still, Rhames, author of the upcoming book, “The Master Teacher: 12 Spiritual Lessons that can Transform Schools and Revolutionize Pub- lic Education,” cautioned that there’s another side to the success story that shouldn’t be overlooked. “There’s a huge race- based disparity of per- formance on the SAT, which all 11th graders in the state of Illinois has to take,” Rhames said. “Some CPS high schools did the worst in the state. So, how effective is our growth, if it’s not trans- lating into better prepa- ration for college?” But, it’s not just about test scores, student at- tendance is up, Chicago high schools are offering more rigorous courses and high school grad- uation and college en- rollment rates continue to rise, said Elaine Al- lensworth of the Chicago Consortium on School Research. The consortium has provided a descriptive examination of two- and four-year college enroll- ment patterns among CPS graduates over the last 10 years. They found that CPS graduates’ immediate college enrollment rates increased over the last decade, with 63 percent of 2015 graduates enroll- ing in either a two- or four-year college imme- diately after high school, compared to 50 percent of graduates in 2006. In 2015, CPS graduates’ rate of enrollment in four-year colleges was equal to the national rate at 44 percent, and higher than some urban districts, including New York and Los Angeles, which were 38 percent and 24 percent, respec- See CHICAGO on page 9
