The push to defund the police might have peaked after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, but a related movement is still going strong. As riots swept America’s cities, then-Sen. Kamala Harris and others appealed for donations to nonprofits dedicated to springing arrested protesters from jail and bailing out the poor. These bail funds existed before 2020, but they’ve since become big business—and in some cases undermine public safety.
A case in point is the Seattle-based Northwest Community Bail Fund, established in 2018 “to post bail on behalf of indigent individuals who have been charged and held on inaccessible bail while awaiting trial.” The group experienced a windfall in 2020, hauling in more than $5.7 million. It posted more than $2.8 million in bail for 696 people that year, up from around $377,000 for 227 defendants in 2019. It hasn’t released figures for 2021 and 2022.
