A Free Start: Community-Based Organizations as an Antidote to the Mass Incarceration of Women Pretrial

Collaborations with community-based programs can potentially reduce the mass incarceration of women in jails across the country. Despite recommendations to the contrary, judges consistently require bail rather than release. As a result, indigent women who cannot pay bail are detained while their income, home, health, and family networks unravel. Ms. Baylor recommends the utilization of community organizations and services at the pretrial stage, which would result in fewer people regulated to prison as a resolution in their criminal case, or returning to jail in the future.