The Bail Trap: A Scandal at the Heart of American Justice

By Robin Steinberg

From the renowned founder of The Bail Project, an eye-opening book about why we allow money to play any role in the administration of justice

Over 90 percent of people held in jail pretrial because they cannot pay cash bail will plead guilty, whether they committed a crime or not. Cash bail not only creates a two-tier system of justice--one for those with money and one for those without--it also drives racial disparities in the criminal justice system and is responsible for almost all net jail growth in America over the past two decades. There is perhaps no other component of America's justice system that is so broken, yet completely integral to the current operation of our courts, as bail.

With engaging and accessible prose, Robin Steinberg, founder and CEO of The Bail Project, and her colleague Camilo Ramirez tell the shocking true stories of people jailed by poverty while also detailing:

the history of bail, from its inception in medieval England, as an incentive for people to return to court, to modern America where it is a "mechanism for detention"

the roles lawyers, judges, and legislators have in the legal system and how and why they have become complicit in excessive bail

how the current bail system undermines the promise of a fair and just system and the U.S. Constitution

effective alternatives to cash bail

For fans of The Race to Incarcerate by Marc Mauer and James Kilgore's Understanding Mass Incarceration, Steinberg, whose previous book was called "powerfully insightful reading" by Kirkus Reviews, and Ramirez provide an unprecedented look at America's cash bail system and inspire us to imagine a better, fairer way forward.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1620978423
• ISBN13: 9781620978429
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: New Press
• Length: 224 Pages