On any given night, more than 450,000 people in the United States who have not been convicted of any crime are locked up in jail simply because they don't have enough money to pay bail. Universalism means no one is disposable and interdependence means that none of us are truly free as long as people are in jail.

The money bail system unfairly jails individuals and saddles them with unreasonable financial burdens. Individuals awaiting trial -- people who haven’t been convicted of any crime -- spend months incarcerated simply because they can’t afford bail. Even more disheartening, research has shown that individuals who can’t afford bail are more likely to be convicted in court than someone who was released on bail.

Love Resists has joined Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU) in working to end money bail and this system of criminalizing individuals for being poor.

Start now

• Take BLUU’s End Money Bail Faith Resource Assessment to share what resources you and your congregation need to engage in this work.
• Watch BLUU’s Babies & Bailouts End Money Bail Panel
• Download the End Money Bail Community Workbook and sign up to facilitate a group

• Watch Jailed for Being Poor, a Love Resists and BLUU webinar featuring people who have been impacted by these injustices as well as volunteers and staff at several community bond funds. Regardless of your familiarity at the start, you will leave the webinar with ideas of how you and your congregation can support the fight to #EndMoneyBail.

Resources on the Movement to End Money Bail

• Transformative Bail Reform Curriculum (PDF, 33 pages) from The Majority/Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)
• Until Freedom Comes Bail Out Toolkit from National Bail Out

•  #FreeBlackMamas for Mother's Day

•  What if we ended the injustice of bail?, TED Talk by Robin Steinberg

• Challenging The Massachusetts Bail System, One Arrestee At A Time (audio on the Massachusetts Bail Fund)

• Subscribe to Love Resists to learn more about #EndMoneyBail and our future webinars

Other Bail Bond Funds

• National Bail Out to #FreeBlackMamas
• Believers Bail Out, push for Ramadan