President Trump on Monday signed an executive order aimed at eliminating cashless bail in the United States by threatening to cut federal funding to jurisdictions that allow the practice.
Mr. Trump has long railed against cashless bail, in which criminal defendants are not required to post bail when they face lesser charges. Studies have shown that such policies have not led to an increase in crime.
But Mr. Trump and conservative lawmakers argue that the practice is a safety threat that results in more accused criminals being released out on the streets.
“Somebody kills somebody, they go and don’t worry about it,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Monday as he signed the order. “No cash. Come back in a couple of months. We’ll give you a trial. You never see the person again.”
The order comes as Mr. Trump has launched a crackdown on crime in Washington and has threatened to turn next to Chicago and New York. And while he has cast his current effort as a success, Mr. Trump has also relied on exaggerated figures to paint a picture of soaring violence in the nation’s capital.
Mr. Trump’s executive order instructs Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify which jurisdictions have “substantially eliminated cash bail as a potential condition for crimes that pose a clear threat to public safety and order” within 30 days.
The Trump administration would then “identify federal funds, including grants and contracts, currently provided to cashless bail jurisdictions” to suspend or terminate, the order states.
Mr. Trump also signed a second executive order that targeted cashless bail practices specifically in Washington, D.C.
“The District of Columbia government’s pretrial release policies, which include prohibiting cash bail, contribute to the disgraceful conditions referenced in the aforementioned Executive Order, as law enforcement must arrest the same individuals multiple times, and dangerous criminals are sometimes rapidly released,” the order states.
It instructs federal law enforcement in D.C. to “work to ensure that arrestees in the District of Columbia are held in Federal custody to the fullest extent permissible under applicable law” and orders Ms. Bondi and Mr. Trump’s budget office to “identify appropriate actions to press the District of Columbia to change its policies with respect to cashless bail.”
Proponents of cashless bail argue that the cash-bail system is unfair, since wealthier individuals can pay to free themselves from jail while poorer individuals cannot afford to do so while their cases play out. They argue courts should consider whether an individual is threat to the community, not how wealthy they are, when deciding whether they can be released ahead of trial.
But opponents of cashless bail, like Mr. Trump, argue that the practice is too lenient.
Starting in the late 2010s, many states started to reconsider bail laws. New Jersey and Alaska were among the first states to eliminate bail for many criminal cases.
In 2019, New York passed a similar law. The measure meant that judges would not be able to set bail for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, like assault without serious injury and burglary.
The impetus for change in New York was the case of Kalief Browder, a Bronx teenager who spent three years on Rikers Island while he awaited trial, accused of stealing a backpack. The case was eventually dismissed, and Mr. Browder later killed himself at his parents’ home.
Using data from 2015 through 2021, the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit think tank, studied 22 cities that had changed bail laws, comparing them with 11 cities that had not. The report found “no statistically significant relationship between bail reform and crime rates.”