Pretrial incarceration has become a potential death sentence, inflicting incalculable pain to our communities and our families. The last thing in the world Texas should be doing right now is making pretrial caging worse.
Yet right now, Texas is poised to pass two laws that would significantly expand pretrial caging. Governor Greg Abbott, police, and prosecutors want more to suffer. The laws would increase the number of people caged pretrial, make it impossible for a significant additional number to pay bail at all, strip judges of their power to free people, and prevent charitable bail funds from bailing out indigent Texans.