Lancaster Bail Fund

Lancaster. Has. A. Bail. Problem.

Since we started watching in 2021, anywhere from 62-70% of the people behind bars at the Lancaster County Prison are not serving sentences, they are being detained pretrial. In real numbers, that's over 500 people per day behind bars in our local jail who haven't been convicted of anything. Many are in jail simply because they cannot afford their bail. 

Cash bail and pretrial incarceration are costly practices that perpetuate the inequities inherent in our criminal system and society at large. Cash bail and pretrial incarceration are correlated with worse outcomes for those who are detained - both in their criminal cases and in their lives - and they fail to keep our communities safe. To the contrary, by destabilizing people and conditioning freedom on ability to pay, our communities suffer. 

Instead of reassessing the status quo, our elected leaders are doubling down with blinders on. As you read this, Lancaster County officials are planning an oversized new jail, which is estimated to cost taxpayers half of a billion dollars, and guarantee our ability to continue our harmful practices in perpetuity. We believe that in building a new jail, we should also re-think what justice looks like, and we are calling on our elected officials to do better! 

About Us:

Lancaster Bail Fund uses a revolving fund to post bail for people detained in the Lancaster County Prison who cannot afford the often-arbitrary price of their pretrial freedom. Because bail money is returned once a person's criminal case is resolved, the impact of the dollars we raise is compounded over time, enabling us to free multiple people with your individual donations. By completing an online form, calling or emailing us, people can request our services and bail can be posted as soon as the same day. Our mission is to alleviate the inequity inherent in the use of cash bail and restore the presumption of innocence.

We also advocate for systemic change. Last year, we partnered with the Vera Institute of Justice's Beyond Jails Initiative to lobby our county officials to adopt common-sense reforms and scale back their plans for a new jail. As part of this project, national experts assessed our local criminal practices and policies, together with our county budget, and came up with a series of recommended actions our elected leaders could take to create a more just, equitable, humane and fiscally responsible pretrial system in Lancaster.    

We can end pretrial incarceration. We can end money-based incarceration. But we need your help!

Quick Stats:

• The Money:
  • Since posting our first bails in the summer of 2021, we've liberated 65 people from money-based incarceration
  • The total amount of bail we've posted to date is $203,700, with the average amount of bail per case being $2,869
  • The lowest amount of bail we've posted is $100 (but we once saw a ONE dollar bail keep someone locked up for days!)
  • Forty-seven of the people we've bailed out have since resolved their criminal cases, and their bail money has been returned to us
  • The total amount of bail returned to us to date is $130,605.85
• The impact:
  • Only ONE of the forty-seven people we bailed out who have resolved their criminal cases was sentenced to jail in connection with their case
  • Roughly 1/4 of the forty-seven people we bailed out who have resolved their criminal cases were found not guilty or otherwise NOT convicted of the charges against them

So why were they ever in our jail to begin with!?

People thrown in jail against a dollar amount they cannot afford can experience disrupted medical care, lose their jobs, housing, personal property and even custody of their children. At worst, pretrial incarceration is a death sentence.

We CAN and WILL do better, Lancaster!!