National Bail Out Collective frees Black moms, caregivers for Mother’s Day
"We just broke another record!!" proud collective staffers tweeted Saturday. "Thanks to your support, we surpassed our goal of $750K!"
For the past five years, the National Bail Out Collective has been paying bail bonds with the help of an expert bail bondsman for Black moms and caregivers to free them from pretrial detention so they can spend Mother’s Day with their families.
“We just broke another record!!” the organization tweeted Saturday. “Thanks to your support, we surpassed our goal of $750K! Tomorrow is #MothersDay – will you help us get to $1 Million to #FreeBlackMamas?!”
“Society’s instinct — even in the midst of global crisis — is to continue criminalizing and punishing folks, especially Black people, under the guise of public health,” they noted. “We do this because we believe that no mama should be caged. We do these bail outs in the tradition of our ancestors who bought their families freedom. We #FreeBlackMamas because we want an end to money bail and pretrial detention,” another tweet read.
The organization reached its $1 million donation goal.
In addition to bailing out Black mothers, the National Bail Out Collective also engages in advocacy and thought leadership in reforming a money bail system that often keeps people accused of even petty crimes incarcerated simply because they can’t afford to go home while they await trial.
In a 2019 interview with ABC News, Shalice Williams said she was rearrested when she couldn’t check in with her probation officer in Baltimore because she didn’t have childcare, and she couldn’t bring her three children to the office.
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Given $2,500 bail that she couldn’t pay, she was separated from her children for 42 days in jail. Williams was originally convicted of second-degree assault in 2014 and was eventually sentenced to one week time served. She spent more time in jail for her probation violation than her original sentence.
Arissa Hall, a leader in the collective, told the outlet that “cash bail is one of the main drivers of mass incarceration in the U.S., and it disproportionately impacts Black and low-income communities.”
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