Stackathon Presentation: Fund Freedom
Every day, thousands of people are jailed simply for the inability to secure their bail, despite being innocent in the eyes of the law. This disrupts lives, separates families, and puts defendants at risk of losing their jobs, losing custody of their children, and becoming victims of prison violence, all of which can entrench defendants further in poverty - and all before they have been convicted of any crime.
This intractable system of wealth-based jailing has also been shown to drastically increase conviction rates amongst those who cannot post bail - even when holding for other variables, detention itself creates enough pressure to force the poor to plead guilty.
Inspired by the efforts of community bail funds, Nicole Fish created Fund Freedom, a single page web app powered by React to interface with the CT Open Data API, listing accused pre-trial inmates in statewide correctional facilities. With filterable up-to-date query results presented in an easy to use UI, Fund Freedom allows citizens to browse and visualize the records of their neighbors being detained while awaiting trial, in the hopes of inspiring action.
Help us end wealth-based jailing, ensure pretrial justice, and secure your neighbors' freedom now.
At the time of filming, the site was still in progress. For the latest version of the site, as well as a blogpost about its creation process, visit the code base, linked below. For more information, check out the following links:
CODE BASE
github.com/thefishter/fund-freedom
API ENDPOINT
dev.socrata.com/foundry/data.ct.gov/bvbe-957i
INSPIRATION
ctbailfund.org
nytimes.com/2015/08/16/magazine/the-bail-trap.html
vice.com/en_us/article/the-dmv-on-steroids-paying-bail-in-new-york-is-next-to-impossible-817