Press Contact: Jeremy Cherson, Director of Communications
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
(TALLAHASSEE, FL) – The Bail Project applauds the Florida Senate Rules Committee for adopting an amendment to Florida’s SB 600 that ensures a level playing field for all organizations providing bail assistance and preserves a critical safeguard for low-income Floridians navigating the pretrial system.
“The Senate Rules Committee chose fairness and common sense by keeping Florida law intact,” said Josh Mitman, Senior Policy Counsel at The Bail Project. “Charitable bail funds and faith-based groups reuse refunded bail money to help people a judge has already cleared for release. Shutting them down doesn’t make communities safer – it just keeps more people in jail unnecessarily and sticks taxpayers with the bill.”
The original language of SB 600 would have made it practically impossible for charitable bail funds like The Bail Project to operate in Florida by preventing nonprofits from recovering and reusing bail money – even when people return to court and meet all pretrial expectations. The Bail Project is asking the House to follow the Senate’s example: maintain the status quo and allow charitable organizations to continue supporting individuals, families, and communities.
Several Senators offered remarks in favor of this amendment. Specifically:
- Sen. Rouson (D): “[This amendment] removes the language that unfairly targets charitable bail groups…and preserves the existing statutory language and legal status quo in Florida.”
- Sen. Harrell (R): “I absolutely believe in second chances… If the money comes back, it should go to the individual or the group that gave the money.”
- Sen. Simon (R): “I don’t like the fact that we’re, in a sense, choking out these charitable organizations because there are families that just can’t afford it… A third of those folks sitting in these jails [have] the charges dropped, and we’ve just got them sitting because they can’t afford to get out.”
- Sen. Jones (D): “The people who benefit from [this amendment] are the nonprofit organizations… it’s working, it’s not broke, it doesn’t need to be fixed. I… support this amendment to keep what’s already happening in place.”
The Bail Project remains committed to working with lawmakers in both chambers to ensure that Florida law strengthens public safety, preserves fairness, and avoids unnecessarily increasing costs for counties.
The Bail Project urges the Florida House to adopt the same language in HB 1017.
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The Bail Project is a national nonprofit working to transform America’s pretrial system by eliminating reliance on cash bail and proving that a more humane, equitable, and effective pretrial system is possible. We provide free bail assistance and pretrial support to thousands of low-income people each year while advancing policy change at the local, state, and national levels. Since our founding, The Bail Project has supported over 40,000 people navigating the pretrial system, which includes nearly 35,000 individuals whose release we secured by posting bail and providing supportive services such as court reminders and transportation assistance. With this support, those clients returned to court 92% of the time, proving that support – not wealth – is what makes the system work. We have also provided supportive services through pilot programs to more than 6,000 people, ensuring that both wealth and access to support are never barriers to fairness in the pretrial process. Learn more at bailproject.org.
Thank you for your valuable attention. The urgency and complication of the cash bail crisis requires meaningful participation to create real change – change that is only achieved through the support of readers like you. Please consider sharing this piece with your networks and donating what you can today to sustain our vital work.
