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This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, December 30th, 2019. I'm Caleb Brown.

Being more honest about the costs, benefits, and incentives built into the cash bail system

is an important first step to reforming it.

Josh Crawford directs the Pegasus Institute in Kentucky,

we spoke in Colorado Springs about bail reform in October.

You know, of the discussions I've had with friends who are attorneys, who are judges, who follow these issues

regularly, especially when it comes to bail.

It has never really made a lot of sense to me that your ability to generate whatever your bond is bears any relationship to the risk you pose to society.

Yeah, so it stems from this idea. to society.

Yeah, so it stems from this idea that you as the defendant should have some skin in the game and you should be accountable to the system to return. For folks who are first-time offenders who have

significant ties to the community, the idea is they should have no bond. They

don't need that additional assurance, they don't need that additional incentive to show up.

And the system works okay when that's the case, where you look at the offense committed, you look

at the criminal record, and you look at the history of whether or not they showed up for court and then a judge

determines some amount, generally an amount that the individual can afford that gives them that

...