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LATEST NEWS
Our community matters! Read our newsletter to stay up to date with what’s happening at the bail fund and how you can help us in our work.
February 2025 Community Newsletter
What does it mean to go on with this work right now? How do we find the strength to take on the daily tasks of abolition when it feels like everything is falling apart?
December 2024 Community Newsletter
It’s through our honest, open-hearted understanding of what’s wrong in our world, and what a better one looks like, that our community will hold together through difficult times.
October 2024 Community Newsletter
It is far more difficult than most people realize to receive clear information on your case or take any action to help yourself while in jail.
WHAT TO KNOW
Now more than ever we have to keep pushing for systemic change. Jump into one of our articles below to get the 101 on why we do what we do.
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 us push for systemic change. As you come...
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,...
LEARN MORE
The system we’re trying to change is endlessly complicated, by design. Educate yourself on the deeper issues of the criminal punishment system.
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)...
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...
ADVOCACY
There are many ways to support our cause and fight for reform in the criminal legal system. Learn how to be a better advocate from analyzing the language you use to supporting bills online and everything in between.
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,...
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...
VOTER AWARENESS
Every election we give people the power to make long lasting change in our communities and in the criminal legal system. Register to vote here: https://vote.gov/ and learn more about how to vote responsibly:
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...
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...
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...
LEGISLATION
While posting bail is a large part of our efforts in the PNW area, we recognize that posting bail is only a temporary fix. We are working toward long-term solutions with other local organizations and community leaders to raise awareness around the criminal punishment system and how it hurts people.
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...
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...
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.