S. The American Bail System

Three-quarters of the incarcerated population in America is awaiting trial, while commercial bail continues to be a thriving $2 billion-a-year industry. This seminar will examine in depth the United States virtually unique reliance on commercial sureties as the leading alternative to detention before trial. We will examine the history of wealth-based detention, the socioeconomic and racial effects of pretrial release and detention, and the many levels at which bail and bond is regulated, from state and local municipal codes to Supreme Court doctrine. Above all, we will focus on bail as a system, considering how American federalism, legislation, law enforcement, commercial incentives, and charitable interventions combine to create day-to-day practices churning defendants through the criminal courts. Students are invited to range widely in their research papers and draw on methods from legal history, sociology and economics, moral philosophy, or black-letter doctrine.