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Court Watch Campaign 2022 – Results are in!
The Northwest Community Bail Fund (NCBF) started court watching in 2020. In February 2022, we initiated a 60-day Court Watch campaign in the Seattle Municipal Court to galvanize support for our larger Court Watch program. This campaign ran from February through April...
How the Criminal Punishment System Harms the LGBTQIA+ Community
During Pride Month, we’re reflecting on how our efforts to change the criminal punishment system impact our LGBTQIA+ neighbors and loved ones. Here are some of our biggest takeaways. There’s a long history (still active today) of police harrassing queer people,...
Meaningful Action: Ways to Get Involved
Whether you read our blog, donate to the bail fund, or volunteer with us, thank you for supporting NCBF’s work to bail people out of jail and one day end pre-trial detention. There are a variety of ways to get involved and help...
The Importance of Paying Bail
Getting arrested is an incredibly destabilizing and disruptive event with far reaching and long-term consequences. There is no dispute that pretrial incarceration disrupts one’s job, family life, places housing at risk, and results in trauma for the entire family,...
We can’t stop now: The fight for systemic change
The murder of George Floyd by four police officers in May 2020 triggered civic unrest in America at a scale not seen since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. The resulting uprisings brought renewed and increased awareness to issues with policing,...
The Danger of the Deserving/Non-Deserving Binary
What is NCBF’s mission? We believe in the presumption of innocence and work to end pre-trial detention. We seek to disrupt the criminal legal system that targets and punishes Black and Indigenous people and people of color. We believe that impacted communities are in...
Bail 101
History of Bail Bail has its origins more than 1500 years ago in what is present day England. During that period, Anglo-Saxons shifted away from the Germanic tribal approach of physically violent retribution to a crime. This was replaced with payments (goods or money)...
Word Choice Matters
Why does word choice matter when we talk about the criminal legal system? You can use different words to describe the same thing. For example, someone who mops the school hallways and takes out the trash might be called a “janitor” or a “custodial technician.” The...
How to Support a Bill Online
Every day in Olympia, bills and legislation are debated and discussed that hold real impact on long term change in the criminal legal system. At the bail fund, we are constantly keeping an eye on this and fighting with other organization to either stop a bill in its...
“We the People” will speak: Pack the Court
We’re asking the community to show support for two defendants at the Pierce County Courthouse on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. Pierce County Courthouse: 930 Tacoma Avenue, 2nd floor The criminal legal system in America presumes that “the People,” or the...
Key Ballot Positions in Local Elections that Impact the Criminal Legal System
The offices up for election on November 2, 2021, will have wide-reaching impacts on day-to-day life in Washington. In a recent poll, Crosscut readers chose “Police and public safety” as one of the most important issues facing voters this year. Respondents specifically...
Stalled Decarceration Efforts During Pandemic Place Citizens at Risk
To combat the spread of COVID-19 throughout the United States, many jurisdictions responded by reducing incarceration in jails and prisons; however, these efforts have stalled in recent months. During the first half of 2020, the United States witnessed an...
Breakdown: How Court-Ordered Fines Bury People in Debt
After a reform effort failed to reach the floor of the state Legislature this year, the fight continues to alleviate the burden that court-ordered fines and fees impose on indigent individuals. House Bill 1412 would have given courts discretion to eliminate all...
Criminalizing Poverty Won’t “Solve” Homelessness
Across the country, cities are increasingly choosing to incorporate fines and arrests as part of the “solution” to the systemic issue of homelessness. Washington is no exception—in the past year a string of measures to ban overnight camping on city property were...
Local Elections, Real Consequences: 2021 Election Guide
Last month we shared an overview of Juneteenth with a timeline of major events from the Civil War to present, and a post on two interrelated systems that propagate racism: voter suppression and mass incarceration. We encourage you to honor Juneteenth and the people...
Voting Rights Restored: Passage of HB 1078 A Step Forward for Democracy
The Washington state Legislature restored voting rights to up to 20,000 residents with the March passage of a bill that allows formerly incarcerated people to vote as soon as they leave prison. Effective 2022, people whose voting rights were revoked after being...
Propagating Racism: Voter Suppression and Mass Incarceration
In last week’s blog post, we provided an overview of Juneteenth and featured a timeline showing major historical events from the Civil War to the present. While progress has been made since the original Juneteenth in 1865, the United States continues to witness...
A History of Juneteenth: How Did We Get Here?
Juneteenth — originating in 1865 — celebrates the day that the last enslaved African Americans were declared free. Although the Emancipation Proclamation took effect over two years prior on January 1, 1863, not all African Americans were immediately liberated. Those...
Pandemic Exposes the Flaws of the Criminal Legal System
According to the National Center for State Courts, the five most common ways courts are responding to COVID-19 are: Restricting or ending jury trials Restricting entrance to courthouses Encouraging or requiring teleconferences or video conferences in lieu of...
Why donate to a Bail Fund?
Northwest Community Bail Fund has been honored and awed by the incredible amount of support that has financed our recent growth and our ability to post bail for more people than ever before. With a 600 percent increase in our funds from 2020 to 2021 we were able to...
NCBF Helps to Reform Court Rule to Decrease Disruptions in People’s Lives
A new court rule that went into effect in February makes it easier for pretrial defendants to maintain work and childcare duties while their cases proceed through the court. Northwest Community Bail Fund joined dozens of attorneys and community partners in supporting...
Washington state receives F+ from ACLU for Response to COVID 19 in Jails
Every state has struggled to curb community spread of the coronavirus over the course of the past year. Across the United States, prisons and jails have been hit particularly hard by the largest outbreaks of the virus due to their dense populations. These spaces were...
Municipal Courts: A Beginner’s Guide To A Flawed Judicial System
The criminal punishment system is complex. When you think about how long one may attend school to become a lawyer or judge, you can understand why the average citizen may not know much at all about how courts work on a local level, let alone a national level. The...
Call to Action: Decarceration as a Matter of Public Safety
DECARCERATION AS A MATTER OF PUBLIC SAFETY NCBF joins The King County Department of Public Defense in demanding that The City Attorney’s Office stop prosecuting most misdemeanors, and the City Council to immediately defund the prosecution and processing of most...
Want to get involved in our Court Watch Program?
NCBF facilitates programs in King County and Pierce County to monitor court activity, gather data and help inform change to protect people from an abusive system. You can get involved today to bring Court Watch to your county or join in current efforts.