Poor Defendants Stuck in Jail to Receive Legal Aid Help on Bail Challenges Citywide

"A pilot program aimed at reducing the number of people stuck at Rikers because they couldn’t make bail will expand citywide next month.

The Decarceration Project, run by the Legal Aid Society, will post a dedicated attorney, paralegal and social worker in each borough to investigate arrests in which someone couldn’t make the set bail, and help lower the amount. The program is aided by a cash infusion of $860,000 from the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.

“No one should be in jail who doesn’t have to be,” said MOCJ director Elizabeth Glazer. “We live right now with a very flawed bail system ... We want to do every single thing that we can to reduce the number of people who are in Rikers who don’t have to be in Rikers.”

The citywide program, which is expected to be up and running by mid-May, will build on last year’s 6-month Manhattan pilot program, which challenged bail for 60 clients — some more than once — and as a result 20 of them were freed, according to the group’s report..."

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