Our new publication with Yale Law School spotlights how communities keep each other free
Mutual aid isn’t an abstract idea. It’s the belief that people keep each other safe – and that freedom should never be something you have to buy. In a new essay for The Notebook, a publication of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School, The Bail Project’s CEO David Gaspar offers a powerful case for why charitable bail funds are one of the clearest expressions of mutual aid in America today.
Gaspar’s essay, “Freedom Should Be Free: The Case for Bail Funds as Mutual Aid,” weaves together data, history, and lived experience to illuminate a simple truth: when institutions fail to protect people, communities step in. They always have. And they still do.
Across the country, nearly half a million people sit in jail on any given day simply because they can’t afford cash bail. Yet, every day, people are freed and supported through collective care – a courthouse social worker making a phone call, a public defender advocating for a client, a donor contributing $10 to our revolving fund that has already helped over 40,000 people get home.
In the essay, Gaspar offers just a glimpse of what this looks like in practice. He shares the story of Nicole, a mother of three who suddenly found herself facing a $50,000 bail she could never pay. Instead of losing her job, home, and custody – instead of being punished before ever seeing a courtroom – she went home. Her community showed up. Her charge was dismissed. And her life remained intact.
This, Gaspar argues, is mutual aid: ordinary people refusing to accept a system that cages people for being poor – and choosing collective care instead.
It’s also the legacy bail funds carry forward: from freed African Americans pooling resources after emancipation, to the Black Panthers feeding children, to neighbors delivering food and medicine during COVID. Mutual aid is how people survive injustice – and how they build the power to end it.
Gaspar’s essay is a reminder that the fight to eliminate wealth-based detention isn’t just about policy. It’s about people. It’s about dignity. And it’s about the simple conviction that freedom should be free.
Read Gaspar’s full essay to see how mutual aid is reshaping the movement to end cash bail – and how people across the country are making freedom possible, together.
You can also explore the full issue of The Notebook on the Yale Law School website, which features a range of voices and ideas shaping the future of justice.
We need your help to secure freedom for people trapped behind bars because of unaffordable bail.
Your support gives hope to the thousands of people still trapped in pretrial detention. We’ve supported more than 40,000 clients through free bail assistance and community-based support services like affordable housing and healthcare, and mental health services. You can help secure the freedom of thousands more and ensure they make it home for the holidays.
The Bail Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that is only able to provide direct services and sustain systems change work through donations from people like you.
