S. The American Bail System

At any given time, over half a million people in America are detained awaiting trial, while commercial bail continues to be a thriving $2 billion-a-year industry servicing those who can afford release. 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. 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. And we will use bail as a site to study the meaning and extent of efforts variously dubbed "law reform." 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.