At 7 p.m. on a Thursday inside the Bronx Criminal Court, Lisa Whiteside is trying to determine who she can prevent from spending the night on Riker’s Island. She scans the docket of 30 scheduled arraignments, knowing it will likely double in length as the night gets longer. Whiteside sits across one side of a thick glass barrier and asks promising candidates whether they have secure housing. What the circumstances were behind their arrest. What headspace they are in now. Not all people get to the face-to-face meeting, but those who do have a chance to argue that they should be helped. And Whiteside must then decide whether to pay their bail.
Whiteside is a charitable bail-fund agent in the Bronx. She pays bail for some New Yorkers who can’t afford to pay it themselves.
She’s part of a program that may seem counterintuitive. The Liberty Fund, created by New York City, sets free some of the very people that local municipal judges have deemed a flight risk.
[For more on this story by TERESA MATHEW , go to https://www.theatlantic.com/po...-out-of-jail/548012/]
Photo: A demonstrator holds a photo of Kalief Browder during a candlelight vigil outside the entrance to Riker's Island in New York
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