Speaker 1: As media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, it's me today. It's James and I'm joined
Speaker 2: by Jake Taylor and Azalea and they're all from the
Speaker 2: Blue Ridge Community Bail Fund and we've asked them to
Speaker 2: come on today. We're recording this on what's it now,
Speaker 2: the sixth of November twenty twenty three. And the reason
Speaker 2: we wanted to talk about bail funds today was that
Speaker 2: we're almost exactly a year out from the election, and
Speaker 2: we're also in the middle of a massive protest movement
Speaker 2: against the Israeli bombing of Palestine. I attended a Free
Speaker 2: Palestine protest today. Lots of you will have attended them
Speaker 2: over the weekend. Normally, in this kind of current political climate,
Speaker 2: when people protest about things, or when there are elections,
Speaker 2: leads to an increased protest movement, which generally leads to
Speaker 2: more state clap down on the protest movement, which means
Speaker 2: people getting arrested, which means people get bailed out. And
Speaker 2: we have like a year until the election, so it's
Speaker 2: a good time to maybe talk about organizing. To hear
Speaker 2: from people who have been doing this for a while.
Speaker 2: Some of you will remember bailfronds through twenty twenty some
Speaker 2: of you went. Some of you will not be in
Speaker 2: countries where this is a relevant concept, but I feel
Speaker 2: think it's a very important one to talk about. So
Speaker 2: I'd like each of you guys to introduce yourselves, if
Speaker 2: you could, I.
Speaker 3: Can get started. I'm Jake Wiener. This is my second
Speaker 3: time on. I was previously on talking about a CBP
Speaker 3: one app and immigrants surveillance of the border. In my
Speaker 3: day job, I'm a lawyer at the Electronic Privacy Information
Speaker 3: Center in Washington, DC. I'm also a UVA logger AD.
Speaker 3: I've lived in Charlottesville on and off since twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: and I've been on the board of the Bail Fund
Speaker 3: for about a year and a half now.
Speaker 4: Yeah. My name is Taylor and I've lived in Charlesto
Speaker 4: pretty much my whole life for work. I'm a carpenter
Speaker 4: and I've been on the Bail Fund here since twenty
Speaker 4: twenty a couple of months. I wasn't here for the start,
Speaker 4: but joined quickly after it got founded.
Speaker 1: And I think, Yeah, I'm Azalea.
Speaker 5: I'm a twoall at Uba law I'm originally from Chicago,
Speaker 5: grew up in a very proud Mexican Mexican American community.
Speaker 5: I have lived in the Pacific, Northwest, North Carolina, most
Speaker 5: recently DC, so various cities and places throughout the country.
Speaker 2: Nice, excellent, We've got so I think to start off with,
Speaker 2: just in case we've got folks who are not in
Speaker 2: the US, or maybe I'm not familiar, can one if
Speaker 2: you explain to us what bail is?
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, in the American legal system, we have a
Speaker 3: pretty unique concept, which is, after you're arrested for a crime,
Speaker 3: or if you're detained as an immigrant, you are they
Speaker 3: going to go in front of a magistrate who will
Speaker 3: decide whether you get out of jail right now or
Speaker 3: whether you have to wait. And most countries in the world,
Speaker 3: that's surely a question of how likely you are to
Speaker 3: show up to court and how dangerous you might be
Speaker 3: to the community. Right Obviously, they're not going to let
Speaker 3: out someone who's just like killed eight people. That seems
Speaker 3: like it might be a little unsafe. In America, we
Speaker 3: do things a little differently. In almost every state and
Speaker 3: almost every municipality, we have cash bail, which means when
Speaker 3: you go in front of a magistrate, they will decide
Speaker 3: how much money you need to pay. To get out
Speaker 3: of jail. And theoretically this is to ensure that you
Speaker 3: show up to court. So when you go to court,
Speaker 3: your case gets finalized, then you're going to get that
Speaker 3: bail money back. For most defenses, bail is really low.
Speaker 3: We're talking about five hundred one thousand up to maybe
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars for misdemeanors of a nonviolent felonies. Now, obviously,
Speaker 3: if you are a person of means, that's really easy
Speaker 3: to come up with some money, have a family member
Speaker 3: come post it, or to go get a bail bondsman.
Speaker 3: If you go to a bail bondsman, they are going
Speaker 3: to charge you about ten percent of the cost of
Speaker 3: your bonds. So if you have a five thousand dollars bond,
Speaker 3: that's about five hundred bucks. You're not going to get
Speaker 3: that money back, but then you don't have anything out
Speaker 3: of pocket. But for a lot of people, the criminal
Speaker 3: legal system mostly arrests people for crimes of poverty and
Speaker 3: drug addiction. Is that's the majority of people who go
Speaker 3: through the system. They do not have the money to
Speaker 3: go get a bail bondsman, which is so we regularly
Speaker 3: get calls from people who don't have one hundred five
Speaker 3: hundred dollars to get out of jail. That's where the
Speaker 3: bail fund comes in. We pay people's bonds, no questions asked.
Speaker 5: Nice I'd also like to add that, in addition to
Speaker 5: a lot of drug charges, a lot of ways that
Speaker 5: people end up in jail is through traffic stock ups
Speaker 5: and traffic violations. Something as minor as a back tail
Speaker 5: light not being fully lit and that then gives officers
Speaker 5: pays an excuse to proceed from there. So something as
Speaker 5: simple as you know, you didn't get to go to
Speaker 5: the mechanic to have your back tail light fixed, can
Speaker 5: lead to all sorts of issues down the road of
Speaker 5: ending up at shail, unfortunately in this wonderful country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah, it's certainly pretty mess to death line,
Speaker 2: it's good that we have you guys to help kind
Speaker 2: of while we're working on having a better system, I
Speaker 2: guess we can make this one a little bit less painful,
Speaker 2: especially for people who are not people of means. So
Speaker 2: with your bail fund, perhaps you could explain, like, obviously,
Speaker 2: some of those better amounts you've posted, even the once
Speaker 2: you said that were relatively low, there's still a lot
Speaker 2: of money. So you guys have had the bail fund
Speaker 2: for three and a bit years now, How did you
Speaker 2: go about starting a bail fund? And then I guess
Speaker 2: what are the different roles that ETV plays within it?
Speaker 4: Now? Sure I can talk about a little bit how
Speaker 4: it got started. It got started in twenty twenty. I'm
Speaker 4: not one hundred percent sure, but it's about the spring
Speaker 4: or the summer, and it was pretty much right around
Speaker 4: the time, you know, George Floyd got murdered and all
Speaker 4: the protest was going on. It was started by a
Speaker 4: group of four or five law students at UVA, and
Speaker 4: since the founding they've all graduated and moved on to
Speaker 4: other things. But that was the time when it was
Speaker 4: it was relatively easy. There was a lot of people
Speaker 4: donating money, so we were able to raise quite a
Speaker 4: bit of money at that time. And the way the
Speaker 4: bonds work is that we paid the bond and then
Speaker 4: as the case as the person goes through the court
Speaker 4: system and the case gets finalized, money gets returned to
Speaker 4: us and we're able to use that money to post
Speaker 4: bonds again. And so with even a relatively small amount
Speaker 4: I believe we have now we have forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: We're able to post a lot of bonds, up to
Speaker 4: nearly two hundred thousand dollars so far in bonds posted,
Speaker 4: and so that's like it's a self sustaining process. Like
Speaker 4: it can sometimes take up to a year to get
Speaker 4: the money back. But instead of you know, paying the
Speaker 4: money and it being gone forever with the bail bondsmen like,
Speaker 4: we're able to continuously do this and get a lot
Speaker 4: done with a little bit of money relatively.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You can keep
Speaker 2: it moving through the system, I guess. So when you
Speaker 2: guys like that, you said you had that forty grand, right,
Speaker 2: where did that come from? How how did you guys
Speaker 2: obtain that forty grand?
Speaker 4: Just donations from individuals pretty much? Yeah, I think, like
Speaker 4: I think there were some larger donations in the five
Speaker 4: thousand dollars range from organizations at the time, but and
Speaker 4: then since then it's kind of trickled in, you know,
Speaker 4: and I think I've donated my money sometimes it's yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very important thing. So perhaps you could can
Speaker 2: you give us a just we get it like get
Speaker 2: it in at the top the episode, is there a
Speaker 2: link where people can donate they'd like to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we absolutely need your donations. Bail funds around the
Speaker 3: country have had fundraising dry up, and right now we
Speaker 3: have a wait list, like people are in jail because
Speaker 3: we don't have enough money, So please donate to us.
Speaker 3: We're on PayPal at PayPal dot me e slash Blue
Speaker 3: Ridge Bail. We're also on gofund me at Blue Redge
Speaker 3: Community Bail Fund, and that information is on our Instagram,
Speaker 3: which is Ridge Bail Nice at Ridge Bail Perfect.
Speaker 2: So I think you were talking about that, like a
Speaker 2: lot of bail funds have dried up since twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: and I know that, like I've seen that in a
Speaker 2: lot of places. So there was this real little like
Speaker 2: growth in organizing in twenty twenty, right, and then obviously
Speaker 2: there's been like it just people have burnt out, people
Speaker 2: have been incarcerated in a number of things. It's made
Speaker 2: that movement hard to sustain. That we don't necessarily need
Speaker 2: to go into. But what I do want to talk
Speaker 2: about is like how you guys have been able to
Speaker 2: sustain your bail fund and keep helping people out and
Speaker 2: doing this important work. So perhaps you could explain the
Speaker 2: different roles that people play in a bail fund that
Speaker 2: people are thinking like, oh, this needs to exist in
Speaker 2: my community, Like what roles do you have, what kinds
Speaker 2: of people do you need?
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, I think you know a lot of bill
Speaker 4: funds can be strectured differently. But the way ours works
Speaker 4: and we're relatively small, and one of our works is
Speaker 4: we have a group of six of us that's on
Speaker 4: the actual board and we handle like the logistics. So
Speaker 4: I'm the chair, Jake's the treasurer azially as a board
Speaker 4: member at large, but we all kind of share the
Speaker 4: same responsibilities, which is we answer the phone, which is
Speaker 4: one of the biggest parts when people call us either
Speaker 4: from the jail or from the street, like family members
Speaker 4: and someone in jail. And then when we get a call,
Speaker 4: you know, we'll we look up the case, call the
Speaker 4: jail to find out and then then with the next
Speaker 4: step is posting the bond. And so we have a
Speaker 4: list of volunteers that their job is just to go
Speaker 4: to physically go to the jail with the cash to
Speaker 4: post the bond and sometimes you know, one of the
Speaker 4: board members will do there. So so yeah, it can
Speaker 4: be yeah, and then as far as like keeping the
Speaker 4: organization running well, Like I said, all the original board
Speaker 4: members are gone and I've been the longest running member.
Speaker 4: But we do have a lot of law students, like
Speaker 4: half our board as law students, and that presents own
Speaker 4: challenges because they graduate and leave, but it also like
Speaker 4: brings fresh people into the organization. And then you know me,
Speaker 4: I live in charlesvillem here forever, which helps kind of
Speaker 4: continue with the institutional knowledge.
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, having that longevity I think is important.
Speaker 5: And Melissa, Jake and Taylor have done an incredible job
Speaker 5: sustaining the Bill Fund, and those of us who are
Speaker 5: law students just kind of come in and out and
Speaker 5: try to support the best we can and the limited
Speaker 5: time that we're here. Those of us who the week
Speaker 5: after the three years, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's still very important to have all those
Speaker 2: people on your time energy commitment. So like, just by existing, right,
Speaker 2: the bail Fund kind of points out that this is
Speaker 2: a system that is broken or it certainly doesn't work
Speaker 2: to serve people. So perhaps we could explain a little
Speaker 2: bit of that, Like in the absence of a bail fund,
Speaker 2: how do things look for people who are incarcerated?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Like what you spoke a little bit about bail bondsman,
Speaker 2: but like perhaps you could talk about like the amount
Speaker 2: of bails and people would post for oh, it would
Speaker 2: be the amount of how it's calculated, like what it
Speaker 2: would be, and like what that would mean in terms
Speaker 2: of people being in prison, and like how long they
Speaker 2: might expect to stay in prison just because it couldn't
Speaker 2: afford that bail or in being incarcerated. I should not
Speaker 2: say prism.
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, folks are in jail.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the one of the cruelest parts of the American
Speaker 3: criminal justice system from an ill legal system, there's not
Speaker 3: much justice is that your freedom is contingent on having wealth.
Speaker 3: So bail is for most offenses, as I've said, is
Speaker 3: quite low, and it's very not only is it they're
Speaker 3: difficult to post if you don't have anyone, but it's
Speaker 3: also you know, people are locked up because they don't
Speaker 3: have five hundred dollars. We I've gotten calls from people
Speaker 3: who have literally said, I don't have one hundred dollars
Speaker 3: and I don't have anyone on the outside, and I've
Speaker 3: been sitting in jail for three months for sometimes for
Speaker 3: an offense that when they go to court was maybe
Speaker 3: only a month of jail time. People routinely will spend
Speaker 3: six months a year in jail for offenses that their
Speaker 3: total amount of jail time was a couple months, and
Speaker 3: you don't get compensated for that. Like if you spend
Speaker 3: a year in jail for which means that you did
Speaker 3: eleven months that you didn't have to do, the state
Speaker 3: doesn't like cut you a check. That's like, hey, we
Speaker 3: destroyed your life for eleven months for no reason. And
Speaker 3: one of the things that is just like the most
Speaker 3: heartbreaking about doing this work but is also sometimes like
Speaker 3: it makes you feel really good, is the way that
Speaker 3: caging people just like ruins their lives. It's incredibly hard
Speaker 3: to talk to people in jail from the outside. It's
Speaker 3: very expensive. So when you're in jail, you are not talking.
Speaker 3: You're like not talking to your loved ones. You're not
Speaker 3: able to sustain a job, you're probably losing housing. It's destroying,
Speaker 3: you know, the life that you have on the outside.
Speaker 3: But the flip side is like we've gotten calls from
Speaker 3: folks who have said, like, hey, you bonded me out
Speaker 3: and now I got a new job, I got a
Speaker 3: new place to live, like I'm doing great, which is
Speaker 3: incredibly meaningful, and Taylor can probably talk a little more
Speaker 3: about what being in jail is like.
Speaker 4: Thank Street. So I think one of the things that
Speaker 4: like really drew me to this work was like I'm
Speaker 4: an abolitionist, and but when I was younger, I spent
Speaker 4: two years in jail. I was twenty three, twenty three
Speaker 4: to twenty five. I was in jail for selling drugs,
Speaker 4: and I think, like, yeah, really, that's like something that
Speaker 4: really motivates me now to do this stuff. It's it's crazy,
Speaker 4: like Jake said, yeah, we've had people that one guy
Speaker 4: called and thought that we were a bailbondsman and then
Speaker 4: found out like on the phone, he's like, oh, I
Speaker 4: didn't know you guys like would pay my bond for free.
Speaker 4: It was a five hundred dollars bond, so he would
Speaker 4: have to pay fifty dollars to a bail bondsman And
Speaker 4: he didn't call us for several days because he thought
Speaker 4: he has fifty dollars. So it's like, you know, I like,
Speaker 4: it's you know, we spent all this time like thinking
Speaker 4: about like leftist stuff and like, but it's it's eye
Speaker 4: opening to see people that are stuck in jail, like
Speaker 4: for a lack of one hundred dollars, you know, like
Speaker 4: and that's it. Think it out and so I think, yeah,
Speaker 4: like and then sometimes people call us and they're like,
Speaker 4: I have nobody. There's nobody out outside that can help them.
Speaker 4: So it's that kind of stuff. It is upsetting, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's like crazy to see this like system set up
Speaker 4: like this, but it's like it's one of the things
Speaker 4: that like really motivates me to keep doing this work.
Speaker 4: Is like, man, it's so rewarding when you get those calls.
Speaker 4: And and also I think to expand as something that
Speaker 4: Jake said about the bail system, it's like it's the magistrates.
Speaker 4: When you go in front of the magistry to get
Speaker 4: the bond. There's no the magsties have no oversight, they're
Speaker 4: not elected. It's you know, we kind of just joke
Speaker 4: like it's a vibe based system, like they just can
Speaker 4: issue a bond for however much they feel like. And
Speaker 4: so this is where you're really going to see like
Speaker 4: the structural racism and like the classes and really come
Speaker 4: crashing down on people, you know, in front of this system.
Speaker 3: So yeah, one thing that I'd like to add because
Speaker 3: I think people don't really realize is so a magistrate
Speaker 3: is working under a judge. They're basically a judge is
Speaker 3: like an appointed position or elected. You have to be
Speaker 3: a lawyer, you have to have a fair amount of
Speaker 3: legal education. Your magistrate is just some dude, like the
Speaker 3: most some dude person you've ever met. They have no
Speaker 3: training required, They have no like legal training requirements. Many
Speaker 3: of them are like fresh out of the army, may
Speaker 3: like maybe went to college, maybe didn't. So you're talking
Speaker 3: about someone who has no particular expertise in evaluating people,
Speaker 3: looking at someone for a few minutes and deciding how
Speaker 3: dangerous they are to the community and making up in
Speaker 3: their head how much that person can probably pay to
Speaker 3: get out. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I spent the summer my first year, after summer after
Speaker 5: first year of law school at the Lynchburg Public Defender Office,
Speaker 5: So I got to review a lot of bodycam footage
Speaker 5: and the way it worked with the magistrate. A lot
Speaker 5: of the times was that a police officer would give
Speaker 5: a report, an incident report, read it aloud, swear them in.
Speaker 5: They'd say, this is true, this is what happened. They
Speaker 5: would give their full report, and basically that's how it
Speaker 5: was determined whether bail would be or how much bail
Speaker 5: would be set to. It was heartbreaking and it was
Speaker 5: very it happened very quickly, like it was all based
Speaker 5: on the police officer's report and what they just decided
Speaker 5: to spew in five minutes or less.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's yeah, it's it's a pretty messed up system.
Speaker 2: I think some states have like bail guidelines, right, if
Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken, like I think California has like you know,
Speaker 2: if you did this, if if you're accused of this offense,
Speaker 2: and then your bail goes in this bucket, and then
Speaker 2: you know if it adds up depending on offenses or
Speaker 2: conspiracy or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a really good point. Like the thing about
Speaker 4: bail is this different like in every state on some
Speaker 4: states you know have maybe like more progressive quote unquote, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, but some have, some don't.
Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah, I was going to say, like California
Speaker 2: has a reputation being progressive. San Diego has charged some
Speaker 2: of the most insanely high bail amounts I've ever seen.
Speaker 5: Although we all aspire to do what Illinois just did
Speaker 5: at the beginning of this year, which was to eliminate
Speaker 5: bail all together. It would just or cash bail all together.
Speaker 5: It would just be based on whether you can be
Speaker 5: released or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be nice. It is just to be
Speaker 2: clear that the bail isn't like it's not like the
Speaker 2: state keeps the money unless you don't show up. Like
Speaker 2: it is it a revenue generator for states. Who's just
Speaker 2: purely like a sort of punitive thing that they think
Speaker 2: has some kind of value. In that regard, it's purely punitive.
Speaker 3: The idea truly is to make sure that you show
Speaker 3: up to your court case. And in the US it's
Speaker 3: often used as a prox for dangerousness. So when you're
Speaker 3: going from a magistrate, you got three options. Number one
Speaker 3: is you get out on personal recognizance. If you're a
Speaker 3: nice white boy like me, you're getting personal recognizance almost certainly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Option two is you're gonna have to pay cash bail,
Speaker 3: and that amount is decided by the magistrate, as you said,
Speaker 3: possibly on a schedule, possibly just whatever the magistrate feels like.
Speaker 3: And then option three is you might get no bond,
Speaker 3: which is to say that it doesn't matter how much
Speaker 3: money you have, you're not getting out of jail. And
Speaker 3: in like a functioning criminal legal system that just on
Speaker 3: its own terms like worked. This is not an abolitionist perspective.
Speaker 3: Cash bail is unnecessary. The magistrate should be deciding and
Speaker 3: the judge should be deciding whether you are a threat
Speaker 3: to the community or whether you're not, and that should
Speaker 3: be like the only option. The other thing I'll throw
Speaker 3: in here is that paying money is not the best
Speaker 3: way to make sure that people should up the core.
Speaker 3: There's extensive data from the immigration system and from the
Speaker 3: legal system that the number one best way to make
Speaker 3: sure people show up to their courte is to give
Speaker 3: them an attorney.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which is a whole other thing we can
Speaker 2: get into with the immigration So I think that's a
Speaker 2: really good kind of example of some a good deep
Speaker 2: dive into what bail is. So essentially, like a bail
Speaker 2: fund can make it so that there is not this
Speaker 2: financial burden or this financial barrier to freedom. Right, Well,
Speaker 2: you haven't meaned yet to be convicted of any crime.
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily like an abolitionist thing to exist, but
Speaker 2: like it helps at least move us towards a less cruel,
Speaker 2: a less unjust system, I suppose. So I want to
Speaker 2: talk about like a little bit of the like nuts
Speaker 2: and bolts of what it takes to run a bail fund.
Speaker 2: But before we do that, we are twenty two minutes
Speaker 2: in so talking thouts and bolts. We need to pay
Speaker 2: our bills. So this is an advert. It's probably not
Speaker 2: so that you need here, it is anyway, right, we're back.
Speaker 2: I hope you've bought whatever it was, MRIs or gone
Speaker 2: a very good dog, coins or I don't know, Hoover.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about the that Like, like, if you're
Speaker 2: listening to this and you're in your car on your
Speaker 2: way home or whatever time you're listening on a long
Speaker 2: road trip, you're thinking, I would like to be the person.
Speaker 2: Maybe you're a law student yourself, or you're formerly incarcerated person,
Speaker 2: or you've had family members go through the system and
Speaker 2: you're like, hell, yeah, this shit sucks, and I would
Speaker 2: like to help make it a little bit less sucky.
Speaker 2: When you're like, I'm thinking here, when you established a
Speaker 2: bail fund, like, is it a five oh one C three,
Speaker 2: do you need like certain like do you I know
Speaker 2: for five O one C three you need certain people,
Speaker 2: certain number of people doing certain jobs on your board.
Speaker 2: That kind of stuff, like what are the like concrete
Speaker 2: steps that one has to take to go from this
Speaker 2: sucks to the chair of the bail fund and I
Speaker 2: can help you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that. So
Speaker 4: we are five on one three C five one C three,
Speaker 4: but we were posting bonds before we had like the
Speaker 4: official status. So I think truly like all you need
Speaker 4: is some motivation and some money and there you know,
Speaker 4: there are bail funds that post ten to fifteen bonds
Speaker 4: a week, and there's bill funds that post one bond
Speaker 4: a month because that's all they can do. And I
Speaker 4: think like as our organization has grown and matured, we've
Speaker 4: gotten way more organized. And we started out it was
Speaker 4: it was pretty chaotic and people it was poorly organized,
Speaker 4: but we were still posting the bonds and I think
Speaker 4: from day one we've been good about that and so
Speaker 4: like you can definitely start and you'll learn as we've
Speaker 4: learned as we go, and you know, we've refined everything.
Speaker 4: But like I said, it just it takes some motivation
Speaker 4: and a little bit of money and then maybe JA
Speaker 4: can talk to them too about the finder details.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think Taylor's absolutely right. I'm going to
Speaker 3: give some recommendations that I would say are how to
Speaker 3: set up your structure in a durable way. But I
Speaker 3: would also point people the National Bail Fund Network, which
Speaker 3: can provide resources and advice for this type of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so basically what you need to run your bail fund
Speaker 3: is you need a group of people. The load, honestly
Speaker 3: is just like too much for one person, both emotionally
Speaker 3: and literally. You need people to share this work with
Speaker 3: for it to be sustainable. I recommend that you set
Speaker 3: up a five oh one C three nonprofit. This will
Speaker 3: help shield your volunteers from legal liability and it means
Speaker 3: you could take tax deductible donations. The way that you
Speaker 3: set that up is going to depend on your state.
Speaker 3: In Virginia, you register it with the State Corporation Commission,
Speaker 3: which means you need a like president, which is Taylor,
Speaker 3: and you need a treasurer and then a couple of
Speaker 3: their potentially a couple of their board members. These are
Speaker 3: the people who own technically the five oh one C
Speaker 3: three and you just need those people on your documents.
Speaker 3: You can use their address, but we recommend that you
Speaker 3: set up a PO box for getting mail. It just
Speaker 3: makes things a little easier means you don't have to
Speaker 3: like hand your personal address over to a magistrate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, makes you as doxible as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I recommend setting up a dedicated bank account
Speaker 3: and go to a bank that makes it has good
Speaker 3: hours so that you can readily withdrail with draw cash
Speaker 3: because you can only postpond in cash, which is its
Speaker 3: own insanity. So one thing we deal with is like
Speaker 3: the bank being closed and then having to wait a
Speaker 3: couple of days, you know, day and a half to
Speaker 3: be able to post.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We also recommend a Google Voice phone number so that
Speaker 3: multiple people can receive phone calls at the same time. Right,
Speaker 3: we can have four people on a Google Voice and
Speaker 3: that means the if I'm working tailor can answer the phone.
Speaker 3: We split it up by weeks, so we have a
Speaker 3: point person each week who is responsible for answering the
Speaker 3: phone mainly, but that doesn't mean you're the only person
Speaker 3: who answers that week. It's just sort of you want
Speaker 3: to be more heads up. You also are going to
Speaker 3: want a decision making structure. We use a consensus based model,
Speaker 3: do most of our discussions in a signal thread, but
Speaker 3: then we also meet about once a month and if
Speaker 3: we have some issue that comes up, we can meet
Speaker 3: more often, and you need ideally a way to connect
Speaker 3: to volunteers. So we've had good luck with the law school,
Speaker 3: but we're expanding beyond that, you know, trying to be
Speaker 3: a bit of different institutions in the community and recruit
Speaker 3: folks to volunteer for us. You want to do some
Speaker 3: amount of vetting of your volunteers. You know, they should
Speaker 3: be in an affinity network or have a way that
Speaker 3: you can ensure that they're not going to walk away
Speaker 3: with a five grand in cash.
Speaker 4: That you hand them.
Speaker 3: Doesn't have to be extensive, but it's good to be
Speaker 3: smart about.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And one thing that we found really helpful is having
Speaker 3: business cards because that means you can hand it to
Speaker 3: the magistrate and they can get your address right, they
Speaker 3: can put you the name of the bail fund down.
Speaker 3: A problem that we've had is not all magistrates recognizing
Speaker 3: the bail fund, which but you really want to have
Speaker 3: a peel box and that business card so that when
Speaker 3: you get checks back from the court system, they come
Speaker 3: to a centralized place.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, and then anyone could drop in and
Speaker 2: to pust it into the bank account.
Speaker 3: And then the last thing that you want is website
Speaker 3: and a fundraising infrastructure. So as we said at the top,
Speaker 3: right now we're using GoFundMe and PayPal, but any way
Speaker 3: that you make this work is great, and we can
Speaker 3: definitely do better and we'll be expanding. That's basically it.
Speaker 3: Though it's really not that much, Yeah, but that's great.
Speaker 2: I think it's like so often like a thing that
Speaker 2: I've seen just being sort of on the left in
Speaker 2: various movements since I was younger. It's like we reinvent
Speaker 2: the wheel every four or five years, you know. So
Speaker 2: just having those things that you guys have learned, you know,
Speaker 2: like using Google Voice and having a bank with good hours,
Speaker 2: I think that saves someone from having to fall down
Speaker 2: those same holes again. So that's really valuable. I wonder that,
Speaker 2: like you talked a little bit about legal liability, which
Speaker 2: we don't necessarily need to go into, but like there
Speaker 2: must is there. Like I mean, there have been some
Speaker 2: obviously heavily politicalized arrests in the last few months in
Speaker 2: the United States. Do you guys face like personal blowback
Speaker 2: or blowback against a group when if you're able to
Speaker 2: bail someone out where their arrest has been heavily reported
Speaker 2: on or politicized, because that's something people need to be
Speaker 2: aware of.
Speaker 4: I think that's a great question. Where we are, there's
Speaker 4: really we have a to the bomb for anything that's
Speaker 4: like political protests related. But there is a bail fund
Speaker 4: that's about an hour away, much bigger than ours, that
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty eight was doing like every night bail
Speaker 4: support jail support. So yeah, that's like an example of
Speaker 4: you know, just way different bailpunes operate. And then so
Speaker 4: basically we have not ever faced any kind of political
Speaker 4: blowback or any issues, but it's definitely something that we're prepared.
Speaker 4: We think about because it can't happen. There's badline in story,
Speaker 4: and there's definitely cases around the country where like prosecutors
Speaker 4: have taken aim at bail funds. You know, Atlanta of
Speaker 4: course was a really really yeah big one, but they
Speaker 4: think so yeah, everything to.
Speaker 3: Add maybe, yeah, I will say that it's certainly a
Speaker 3: possibility that your bail fund becomes the target of both
Speaker 3: like institutional and like a kind of right wing moral panic.
Speaker 3: These things happen, It's I think relatively unlikely, but that
Speaker 3: doesn't mean you shouldn't be prepared for it, and I
Speaker 3: think that when you kind of address that, and if
Speaker 3: you end up in the media or getting heat for it,
Speaker 3: the most important thing that you can do is reflect
Speaker 3: the fact that the bail fund is not responsible for
Speaker 3: what happens when people get out, because we don't decide
Speaker 3: if you're getting out of jail. We will work on
Speaker 3: a first come, first serve basis. When someone calls us,
Speaker 3: we post their bail, no questions asked. And that's because
Speaker 3: there's already been a decision of whether this person is
Speaker 3: safe to be released, and that decision is made by
Speaker 3: the magistrate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so any.
Speaker 3: Responsibility falls on the criminal legal system, it does not
Speaker 3: fall on us. I think it's important to say that
Speaker 3: you never hear this blowback coming towards bail bondsman, even
Speaker 3: though they get out way more people and more dangerous
Speaker 3: people than we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's definitely the case. So I wonder, like, what
Speaker 2: other issues you have faced hardships and you spoke about
Speaker 2: a couple of them, are there other things like that
Speaker 2: you've I know, for instance, like i've obviously as part
Speaker 2: of my reporting, or maybe not obviously, but some people
Speaker 2: apparently don't bother to do it. But I communicate with
Speaker 2: incarcerated people when they'm writing about them because it seems
Speaker 2: like a reasonable thing to do, and I am very
Speaker 2: aware of how annoying, expensive, time consuming, and just generally
Speaker 2: totally inadequate the system is of communication with people, even
Speaker 2: people who are not convicted of any crime. So I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's something you've encountered, if there are
Speaker 2: other sort of hardships that you guys have had to
Speaker 2: deal with, perhaps if there are ways you've worked out
Speaker 2: to get around them or to at least make them
Speaker 2: less difficult, then that would be great people to hear too.
Speaker 4: The communication thing is a huge problem, yeah, exactly. You know,
Speaker 4: most of the calls we get are from people that
Speaker 4: are acturr in the jail and they can only call
Speaker 4: us and we cannot call them. So you know, they
Speaker 4: call us and we have to just say okay, like
Speaker 4: you need to call back in a couple of hours,
Speaker 4: and then you know, they have lockdowns, they can't get
Speaker 4: to the phone, all sorts of things. So the worst
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, they probably one of the worst things
Speaker 4: that ever happened was someone called and I called the jail,
Speaker 4: and the jail was like, oh, they can be released today.
Speaker 4: And so the guy calls back and I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 4: you're going to get released today. We're going to have
Speaker 4: a volunteer go out and post this bond, Like you
Speaker 4: don't need to call me back, Like if you want to,
Speaker 4: you can, but it's it's all rolling right, yeah, And
Speaker 4: then I call the jail to triple check everything, and
Speaker 4: they say, oh, you know, we have to hear back
Speaker 4: from the court. The court has to approve this, and
Speaker 4: they're like closing in thirty minutes, so it's not going
Speaker 4: to happen today. And so now like I have no
Speaker 4: way to call this guy and tell him that he's
Speaker 4: actually not going to get out today because of a
Speaker 4: bureaucratic issue, and I just have to wait until he
Speaker 4: just like can't take anymore. And then calls And that
Speaker 4: was really unpleasant situas it's really unfortunate, and you know,
Speaker 4: he was not happy. He was not happy, and I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, he took a little bit out on me,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't a case of him actually be mad
Speaker 4: at me.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I think that's something that's really cool, is like no
Speaker 4: one we deliver bad news all the time, you know,
Speaker 4: we say you can't get out because of X Y Z.
Speaker 4: And no one's ever like actually mad at us. You know,
Speaker 4: they might be like annoyed for a second because you know,
Speaker 4: I'm on the phone delivering the bad news, but every
Speaker 4: time at the end they're like, thanks so much, like
Speaker 4: I appreciate you. So we haven't had any like I mean, yeah,
Speaker 4: I think nothing really super negative has happened. It's just
Speaker 4: like you said, the communication huge problem. When it's family
Speaker 4: members going from not in jail, it's a little more
Speaker 4: easy to deal with. You can call them back.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll jump in on communication just for a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because this is an issue that I work on at
Speaker 3: my day job.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The paid prison phone system is one of the worst
Speaker 3: parts of American life. It is incredibly expensive to call people,
Speaker 3: and the phone systems work really poorly, and they're actually
Speaker 3: getting worse. So for us, like the main jail that
Speaker 3: we work with, Middle River Regional Jail, used to use
Speaker 3: a phone provider called GTL who is one of the
Speaker 3: biggest in the country, and that was pricey, but like
Speaker 3: we could reliably get calls. They just switched over to
Speaker 3: a different provider who makes money in a different way.
Speaker 3: They provide tablets to the prison, and as a result
Speaker 3: of that, all our phone calls are now made coming
Speaker 3: from the prison like social room on a tablet, which
Speaker 3: means sometimes it's too loud to hear the person calling,
Speaker 3: and about fifteen percent of the time the call just
Speaker 3: drops when you pick it up. So the system makes
Speaker 3: it really difficult to correspond with people. Result, a couple
Speaker 3: of things that we do are sharing the phone responsibility.
Speaker 3: Not promising people things when we can't deliver them is
Speaker 3: super important, and like that's mostly a problem because the
Speaker 3: phone system works so badly and we can't communicate with people.
Speaker 3: And then the biggest thing is like giving yourself grace
Speaker 3: when you miss the phone when something goes wrong, because
Speaker 3: it's emotionally very taxing to know that someone desperately wants
Speaker 3: to speak with you because they're potentially at the worst
Speaker 3: point in their entire life and need to get out,
Speaker 3: and you've missed a phone call. So it's, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: really important to be kind to yourself in those situations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you went to stick around.
Speaker 5: And one more thing that I was surprised to find
Speaker 5: out about the phone system is how much recording and
Speaker 5: reviewing of recording goes on through those phone calls. I
Speaker 5: witnessed so many prosecute commonwealth attorneys bring up something from
Speaker 5: phone calls when folks were actually in trial or for
Speaker 5: sentencing hearings or this is later down the road. But
Speaker 5: the fact that they could pull up those recordings from
Speaker 5: a year before, two years before they were calling a
Speaker 5: loved one, a family member, just incredible. How much access
Speaker 5: there is to that and lack of privacy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's very dehumous.
Speaker 4: I gotta jump in on that. Yeah, you end up
Speaker 4: in jail, do not say anything about your case on
Speaker 4: the phone. Oh and don't talk to the guards about
Speaker 4: why you're innocent, because I've seen that people do that.
Speaker 4: It's not good advice. Don't do it. Don't talk about
Speaker 4: the case ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One way that we address that is by telling
Speaker 3: people upfront that we postpond no questions asked, and like
Speaker 3: telling people like, it doesn't matter what your situation is,
Speaker 3: where if we have the money and you can get out,
Speaker 3: we're gonna post Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's not your job to adjudicate, Like you said,
Speaker 2: if someone's safe or unsafe, or innocent or guilty. That
Speaker 2: that's what the state purported to be doing, Like your
Speaker 2: job is just to make sure that someone's not too
Speaker 2: poor to be free. So on the subject of like
Speaker 2: the sheer finances are they, I know, like certainly here
Speaker 2: I've seen and I have no idea what the sort
Speaker 2: of I know San Diego does have. California has these
Speaker 2: bail guidelines so that they can't just set whatever bail
Speaker 2: they want. But like in twenty twenty, we saw some
Speaker 2: sky high bails and I don't know if it was
Speaker 2: just because it was like fucky mail fund of it,
Speaker 2: it was just because that was what the guidelines allowed,
Speaker 2: or some combination thereof. But do you guys have a
Speaker 2: Like we can't because if you said you're dealing with
Speaker 2: forty thousand, right, like, if you drop ten thousand on
Speaker 2: one individual, that obviously means that there are a lot
Speaker 2: of people with five hundred dollars who can't have to
Speaker 2: stay in jail. So do you have like a cap
Speaker 2: on your individual bail amounts for that reason? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Tailold you want to take.
Speaker 4: This, Yeah, yeah, so yeah, we have a cap. We
Speaker 4: pay up to five thousand dollars, So five thousand dollars
Speaker 4: or less and that Yeah, it's exactly what you said.
Speaker 4: Like otherwise, you know, we would be totally broke an
Speaker 4: out of money, and even you know, two five thousand
Speaker 4: dollars bonds in a row, and then you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: we're pretty screwed. So and then I think that's a
Speaker 4: you know, it brings up something else, that jig and
Speaker 4: we're talking about like it's we have it's important to
Speaker 4: stick to that limit if we one time we posted
Speaker 4: a bond up to twelve thousand dollars for somebody, and
Speaker 4: you know, I think it was a combination of many
Speaker 4: factors that led us to do that. But at the
Speaker 4: end of the day, it can be very hard just
Speaker 4: to tell someone no. Because it was like he had
Speaker 4: a five thousand dollars bond and then separate court, I
Speaker 4: got another one and so it was you know, we
Speaker 4: already told him to pay the one bond. Anyway, long
Speaker 4: story is short, We had twelve thousand dollars tied up
Speaker 4: on this guy and then he didn't show up to court.
Speaker 4: And if that's that's when you can lose the money,
Speaker 4: then people don't show up to court, so as well, Yeah,
Speaker 4: fortunately for us, Unfortunately for him, he did get re
Speaker 4: arrested on another charge and when that happens, there's like
Speaker 4: a ninety day period where if the person gets caught,
Speaker 4: then we get the money back. And that's where like
Speaker 4: we are prints. Our policy is like we're not going
Speaker 4: to do anything if the person runs, like we're not
Speaker 4: going to do anything to try to get it back.
Speaker 4: We're not going to revoke anybody's bond. But like a
Speaker 4: billboonbsman might try to like find you if you run. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but so are kind of our joke was kind of like, well,
Speaker 4: we hope that we hope the guy just gets away completely,
Speaker 4: but if he's not going to get away, maybe get
Speaker 4: caught with any days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the best thing is if people would contribute
Speaker 1: and donate, we could be able to allocate for so
Speaker 1: many more people and not have people spend time in
Speaker 1: jail where things like mental health conditions worsen because prison
Speaker 1: guards are and jail guards are not paying attention, where
Speaker 1: you don't have access to an attorney easily, where when
Speaker 1: you show up to your.
Speaker 2: Day in.
Speaker 5: Court, you don't have an orange jumpsuit on, and that's
Speaker 5: not factoring into the judge's mind. So please please donate
Speaker 5: for all those reasons to our built fund.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if we have more money. That's something we talked
Speaker 4: about a lot of times. If we have more money,
Speaker 4: we would be able to raise the on the on
Speaker 4: out we could post, but it's just not feasible right now.
Speaker 2: In terms of donation, it's a great thing. I was
Speaker 2: just thinking, like good because it keeps going around and
Speaker 2: around and around. Right, It's not like you know, you
Speaker 2: give a donation once and you get someone a thing
Speaker 2: and you change their life, like you could potentially change
Speaker 2: dozens of hundreds of people's hold true Digg tree.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I will add on how we address our
Speaker 3: lack of funds. The other system that we have in
Speaker 3: place is a weight list. So people call us and
Speaker 3: we can tell them, hey, you're on the wait list.
Speaker 3: They'll call back all the time and be like, hey,
Speaker 3: if I moved up the wait list. Sometimes people call
Speaker 3: it multiple times a day and they're like, oh, any
Speaker 3: movement my number four? Now this is kind of wild.
Speaker 3: But having the wait list and we go like in
Speaker 3: strict weight list order, with the exception that if someone
Speaker 3: has an under five hundred dollars five hundred dollars or less,
Speaker 3: we'll just post that because if we're sitting around waiting
Speaker 3: for someone to get money back from the courts. For
Speaker 3: a five thousand dollars bond, that's next in line, we
Speaker 3: could have forty five hundred bucks. And so for the
Speaker 3: super low bonds where the issue is like purely purely poverty,
Speaker 3: we make an exception. But you run into that kind
Speaker 3: of ethical question all the time running the bill phone,
Speaker 3: like how do we make the best decisions? It's going
Speaker 3: to help you know people in the best way and
Speaker 3: then accords with our values the most that can get
Speaker 3: pretty heated and intense. And having a setup of folks
Speaker 3: where like you really respect each other and like each other,
Speaker 3: I think is really important to not let that spire
Speaker 3: out of control. It helps that, you know, Taylor and
Speaker 3: Melissa and I have been friends for many years and
Speaker 3: we can like hang out and talk about this and
Speaker 3: then like Taylor and I can go out and go
Speaker 3: for a bike ride.
Speaker 5: Nice.
Speaker 3: So having those relationships I think is really important.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And don't get too competitive over board games like
Speaker 5: wings when somebody wins and still being able to talk
Speaker 5: at the end of that.
Speaker 2: It seems like a direct experience. One then.
Speaker 4: We are an abolitionist like principles, you know, and but
Speaker 4: I think almost like you know, I've talked one of
Speaker 4: their builtments that I know of. They have some sort
Speaker 4: of system I'm not super familiar with, like prioritizing someone
Speaker 4: that maybe they consider to be higher risk in the
Speaker 4: prison system to get out first, and I think that
Speaker 4: that's a really a really appealing thing. But it's it's
Speaker 4: just like kind of Jake touched on earlier, Like that's
Speaker 4: just adding like another layer of judgment, Like then we
Speaker 4: become these like arbiters of who is in jail and
Speaker 4: who's not in jail and as much and so like
Speaker 4: almost almost counterintuitively, like having this system first come, first serve,
Speaker 4: I think is like the most abolitionist thing we can do.
Speaker 2: Yes, I can see that. Yeah, yeah, and it certainly
Speaker 2: reduces a load on you and making most difficult choices, which.
Speaker 4: It helps with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were talking about the system, and like I
Speaker 2: want to bring that up because the system is like
Speaker 2: you know, I cover not a lot of criminal justice,
Speaker 2: but a decent bit, and it is incredibly confusing. It's convoluted.
Speaker 2: It's like they've got these old ass names that you
Speaker 2: don't understand, and then the Ghiara and Virginia, so you
Speaker 2: have a whole other layer of weird stuff going on,
Speaker 2: like with names and so. Like if someone's thinking of
Speaker 2: something this and they're like, I want this to happen,
Speaker 2: but I do not understand how to navigate this system?
Speaker 2: Does that mean that they need someone with a little
Speaker 2: more legal experience? Like can you explain how as like
Speaker 2: someone who isn't Obviously some of both, at least two
Speaker 2: of you have. I suppose all of you have some
Speaker 2: experience with the legal system in one way or another
Speaker 2: and understand it a little better because of that. But
Speaker 2: if someone has been fortunate enough not to have to
Speaker 2: interact with the criminal law system, are they like do
Speaker 2: they need a law student or a lawyer to start
Speaker 2: a bail fund or like how does one go about
Speaker 2: learning to navigate that system?
Speaker 4: I suppose yeah, they definitely not. You do not need
Speaker 4: to have legal experience. I think it was kind of
Speaker 4: a just a random chance that it was a law
Speaker 4: of students that found in this one. Basically, like you said,
Speaker 4: it's extremely confusing system and the only way you're going
Speaker 4: to learn how it all works is just by going
Speaker 4: and posting the bonds, Like the system is possible, Like
Speaker 4: the bond system we're just like a family member going
Speaker 4: to post someone's bond, So like it's set up and
Speaker 4: then it is possible for like your loved one to
Speaker 4: post your bond. And we just started off the experience.
Speaker 4: You know, you just go, you call it. You would
Speaker 4: just call the jail and say where do I post
Speaker 4: this bond and they'll tell you. You know, you come
Speaker 4: to the magistrate. This is where the magistrates is located.
Speaker 4: And then you know, you go with the cash and post,
Speaker 4: and like there will be every like we work in.
Speaker 4: It's ten courts, five different jurisdictions, and then you each
Speaker 4: have two court systems, and I swear almost every single
Speaker 4: court does things somewhat differently. And the way we just
Speaker 4: get on the phone and call them, you know, be
Speaker 4: really polite, just figure it all out and write it
Speaker 4: down so that we know in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: Like you can learn these systems over time, and that's
Speaker 3: really worth doing because in a moment of crisis, like
Speaker 3: mass arrests during a protest movement, knowing how to navigate
Speaker 3: the system in a quick and reliable way is really valuable.
Speaker 3: It makes it way easier to get people out. And
Speaker 3: so I would like pitch even if you don't feel
Speaker 3: really strongly about getting people out of jail, but you
Speaker 3: want to be helpful in a time of crisis, Like
Speaker 3: learning the legal system as a non lawyer is doable.
Speaker 3: I will also say that, like, you don't learn how
Speaker 3: to do this stuff in law school. I didn't learn
Speaker 3: how to post a bond, how to like file a
Speaker 3: KPIST any of this crazy stuff that we have to do.
Speaker 3: Virginia is truly like one of the worst states in
Speaker 3: the country. I talked to a public defender who's worked
Speaker 3: in courts and Louisiana and was like, yeah, a Virginia
Speaker 3: court system is worse and more unfathomable, which is not
Speaker 3: if you know anything about New Orleans legal system is
Speaker 3: not great, but you can you know, you can learn
Speaker 3: an incredible amount and then that skill just becomes valuable
Speaker 3: in a number of different areas. One of the most
Speaker 3: powerful ways that you can help people is even when
Speaker 3: you're not able to postpond for them, knowing how to
Speaker 3: look up someone's case, tell them what their charges are,
Speaker 3: tell them what is happening to them is incredibly helpful.
Speaker 3: Because the majority of people we talk to have some
Speaker 3: idea of why they're in jail, but they don't know
Speaker 3: the details, and that means that they don't know like
Speaker 3: why they're not getting out, and just being able to
Speaker 3: give people a little bit of certainty is really important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a very valuable thing you can do.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I think this whole thing has been a
Speaker 2: very valuable insight into how to build a mail fund,
Speaker 2: I guess, And is there anything else do you guys
Speaker 2: think that we didn't cover in the grand scheme of
Speaker 2: being bail friend entrepreneurs. I don't know what the right
Speaker 2: phrase is that bail fund found.
Speaker 5: Is just the importance of making sure to be rooted
Speaker 5: in the community. I think that's going to be the
Speaker 5: best way, not only to fundraise in the long term,
Speaker 5: because you can have even five dollars if it's reoccurring
Speaker 5: from some community members. You get to know what's happening,
Speaker 5: what's something that's a reoccurring problem throughout the community, and
Speaker 5: just making sure to listen to that and to be
Speaker 5: able to navigate going forward.
Speaker 4: I think one thing that I think is I found
Speaker 4: so interesting about doing this bill fund is that it
Speaker 4: spans it really crosses completely or even like I would
Speaker 4: say it transcends politics. Like I think that all of
Speaker 4: the board members are in here politically motivated, you know,
Speaker 4: we're abolitionists or you know, against the current court system.
Speaker 4: But the people's lives, like across every political spectrum have
Speaker 4: been ruined by prison in jail. And I think one time,
Speaker 4: like I think the most interesting example that Billy drove
Speaker 4: his home was I was at work. I was at
Speaker 4: the lumber yard, you know, and I think, you know
Speaker 4: the people, the salesman at the lumber yard, I think
Speaker 4: they would follow them more if I was going to
Speaker 4: stereotype them, I would say, to you on the conservative side.
Speaker 4: And the one guy, the salesman was he had heard
Speaker 4: about that I did this. I think he saw Facebook
Speaker 4: that posted about it and he was like that is
Speaker 4: He's like, this is just the coolest thing ever, man,
Speaker 4: Like I think it's so awesome, you know, Like he's
Speaker 4: like people are just locked up for like bullshit and yeah,
Speaker 4: and I think, you know, we've had volunteers that I
Speaker 4: think people were like knew him or like why. I
Speaker 4: think he's like almost like a Republican and just going
Speaker 4: out and posting these bonds and I think that it's uh,
Speaker 4: like I said, Yeah, it's just fascinating that it does transcend.
Speaker 4: It transcends the politics a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think anyone who's had to interact with the
Speaker 2: criminal justice system, I like, I haven't a chucte with
Speaker 2: the American one, but like, if they've had in their family,
Speaker 2: if they've had it in there, you know, and their
Speaker 2: friend group or whatever, realizes how dehumanizing and unjust it
Speaker 2: it is. And especially like if they're working people, right,
Speaker 2: they are not people of massive means, They'll have seen
Speaker 2: how how hard it can weigh. And you're trying to
Speaker 2: come up with money to bond someone out who you
Speaker 2: care about, even if they'd end up not being found guilty,
Speaker 2: and so like, it can be a very broad based thing,
Speaker 2: and I think it's certainly something that like I saw
Speaker 2: a lot of people giving money to bailfund's in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: who look, I may not have you know, they weren't
Speaker 2: necessarily people who are also out in the streets. Like
Speaker 2: it's a way for people to be part of a movement.
Speaker 2: It's a way for people to who feel that like
Speaker 2: this is unjust, even if yeah, they might not share
Speaker 2: abolitionist politics or whatever. I think it's something that a
Speaker 2: lot of people would want to get behind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll say that. For me, the most meaningful part
Speaker 3: of this work is having the opportunity to treat people
Speaker 3: with dignity when they are in a system that absolutely
Speaker 3: gives them no dignity. The police do not treat people
Speaker 3: with dignity, the judges in the courts do not treat
Speaker 3: people with dignity, and your jailers are not going to
Speaker 3: treat you with dignity. So having the opportunity to answer
Speaker 3: a phone and be kind to someone, to listen to them,
Speaker 3: and to do small things for them. Call their family,
Speaker 3: let their family know that they're locked up, let their
Speaker 3: family know that someone is working on getting them out.
Speaker 3: Oftentimes I will get a call from someone and we
Speaker 3: aren't able to post, but I can call their mom
Speaker 3: and talk their mom through getting a bail Bondsman. I've
Speaker 3: had people like cry on the phone with me because
Speaker 3: they've said I felt so helpless not being able to
Speaker 3: get my son out of jail, and getting a call
Speaker 3: from you made a huge difference. So I think, I
Speaker 3: just like, if you can do this, you can get
Speaker 3: together with your friends and form a bail fund and
Speaker 3: in a really concrete way improve their lives and treat
Speaker 3: them with dignity, and that's such a radical thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, right, so I think the
Speaker 2: wrap up, we should bet, we should again remind people
Speaker 2: where they can give you their money. So how would
Speaker 2: people go about doing that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, please do, please don't it to the Blue Ridge
Speaker 3: Community Bail Fund. We are on PayPal at PayPal, dot
Speaker 3: me slash blue Ridge Bail. Ridge is ri dge. We're
Speaker 3: on GoFundMe. You can find us on of the Blue
Speaker 3: Ridge Community Bail Fund. We are on Instagram at Ridge
Speaker 3: Bail and we also have a website, Blue Ridge Bailfund
Speaker 3: dot org.
Speaker 4: I think so you can google Blue Ridge Community Bail
Speaker 4: Fund will show up. And yeah, if anybody is interested
Speaker 4: in starting a bail fund and wants to ask us
Speaker 4: any questions like please do, we would love to talk
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 5: We've learned a lot through just reaching out to other
Speaker 5: bail funds, even if they're not in the state of Virginia,
Speaker 5: of how they reformed, what worked for them, what didn't.
Speaker 5: Just having a thirty minute conversation gives sometimes wonderful ideas
Speaker 5: on how to go forward.
Speaker 2: That's great, Thank you so much. Guys, I think that's
Speaker 2: pretty good. Anything else you want to share before we go?
Speaker 2: I think we're good at Thanks so much, Thank you
Speaker 2: for having us.
Speaker 4: Thanks.
Speaker 5: It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 5: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 5: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.