The Bail Post
What do we know about criminal justice reforms or bail reform? How do we evaluate whether reforms are helping or making the situation worse? How can we take politics out of criminal justice and focus on public safety? The Bail Post seeks to be a place where legislators and the public can educate themselves on a host of criminal justice/bail reform issues. With various attempts at criminal justice reform from New York to Texas to California, many people are confused as to what is working and what is not. With the passage of time, more and more data is coming to light over what successful reform looks like and what reforms have been found to not be working. The rise in violent crime across the country has been startling and law makers and the public alike are desperate to find legislation that is effective. Some might ask whether some of the reforms making the situation worse? The Bail Post is an on-going discussion that seeks to cut to the core to provide education on the various issues raised and to highlight what successful criminal justice reform looks like and what measures have been disastrous. Join us and educate yourself about the best practices that jurisdictions must implement to keep their communities safe, while ensuring fairness to defendants. As a someone said recently "Public safety is the foundation of a society. Without public safety we do not have a society."
If you would like to listen other episodes of The Bail Post you can find a subject matter index of the different episodes at- https://pbtx.blogspot.com/p/subject-index-to-bail-post-podcasts.html.
The host is Ken W. Good; an attorney in Tyler, Texas who has been licensed for over 30 years. He has argued cases before the Supreme Court of Texas and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Mr. Good has written a book on bail called "Goods On Bail." He has also has had numerous papers published on Criminal Justice Reform issues. Mr. Good is a board member of PBT and serves on the legislative committee. Mr. Good is married and has two daughters.
The Bail Post
Episode No. 19- Believe Your "Lying Eyes"; Misdemeanor Reform in Harris County
Have you ever heard of the expression that you cannot believe your "lying eyes?" Its a way of saying don't believe what you see, believe what you are being told. No where is this more evident than in Harris County regarding misdemeanor bail reform. Reformers tell us over and over that the reforms are working and that we should not believe anyone else who says otherwise (even the Democrat District Attorney).
In this episode of The Bail Post, we evaluate whether the misdemeanor reforms are working looking at the failure to appear rates for each of the misdemeanor courts for the last two years. The numbers are jaw dropping. Additionally, we are releasing a website where any one in the public can go and see the numbers for themselves. There is no way to sugar coat this. The numbers are not just bad; they are eye openingly bad. They are so bad that our elected officials have to know and have to be intentionally hiding them.
This probably explains why the bad results are spreading to the felony courts as well.
You can see the website by CLICKING HERE.
We are also releasing our first video version of this podcast where you can watch the podcast as well and just listen to the audio. You can see it by CLICKING HERE.
After watching and/or listening to this episode, you will conclude that you can believe your "lying eyes."