New Film Is “Musical Indictment” of Cash Bail & Deadly Houston Jail #DemocracyNow!

The new short film Criminal highlights the injustices of the criminal legal system with a look at how for-profit bail preys on the poor and mentally ill. We’re joined by three contributors to the film, musician Stew Stewart and bail reform advocates Krish Gundu and Alec Karakatsanis, to discuss how what Karakatsanis calls the “unconstitutional” system of cash bail leads to “millions of coerced guilty pleas every single year all across the country, just because people are so desperate to get out.” Criminal focuses on Texas’s notorious Harris County Jail, where at least 15 people have died in pretrial detention just this year. Gundu explains, “We have criminalized mental illness. We’ve criminalized homelessness. We’ve criminalized reproductive rights. And so, the jail has become the emergency room of our community.”

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