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Susan A.'s avatar

The amount of bail has no correlation to whether or not a person will go out and commit more crimes. It only separates the people who can get the money from those who can't. In cases like the Waukesha Parade, had the defendant been accused of that sort of crime, there would have been no bail. You can't look at what they did afterward and decide that bail was too low (or there at all), you have to look at what charge they were under when the bail was decided.

Unfortunately, you can't get most people to think this through. They're just 'Look what he did on bail!'

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James Ackerman's avatar

Two simultaneous truths: The Waukesha driver shouldn't have been out on bail but our cash bail system is also woefully broken. We have to find a balance between protecting the public interest while also guaranteeing people's rights to not be wrongfully or unduly held. I don't have an answer for how we do this, but it is something we collectively need to resolve

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