Should State & Local Gov’ts Publish Info About Defendants in Pretrial Release Programs or Lose Grant Funding? (H.R. 2152)

What is H.R. 2152?

(Updated January 8, 2019)

This bill — known as the Citizens’ Right to Know Act — would require states and local governments receiving Dept. of Justice (DOJ) grant funding and using it for a pretrial release program to report annually about funds received by the program. The report would include the name of each defendant participating in the pretrial release program, occasions on which they failed to make a court appearance, and information related to their previous arrest record. Jurisdictions which fail to provide this report would lose all of their grant funding for the following fiscal year.

Argument in favor

Pretrial release programs only protect public safety and taxpayer resources if the accused criminals participating in them aren’t dangerous and eventually show up for their court date. State and local governments which operate them using federal grants should publish information about enrollees to promote transparency.

Argument opposed

This is a backdoor way of undermining state and local governments’ pretrial release programs and promoting the use of money bail systems, which are unfair to the poor and unproductive. It requires the production of a report that violate criminals’ privacy and would cut all DOJ grant funding to states and cities which don’t produce it.

Impact

Participants in pretrial release programs; state and local governments; and the DOJ.

Cost of H.R. 2152

The CBO estimates that enacting this bill would cost less than $500,000 annually.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sponsoring Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) introduced this bill to increase oversight of pretrial release programs in order to prevent criminals from being released and never returning for their court date:

“The federal government has engaged in the ultimate taxpayer bailout, a bailout for hardened criminals with no respect for the rule of law. From sexual assault to flat out murder, these criminals belong in jail. Once free from the threat of prison, there is nothing to prevent a wrongdoer from committing yet another crime. My bill will require record-keeping and reporting on participants in these federally funded pre-trial release programs, specifically whether the defendants have a history of criminal behavior, whether or not they actually appear for their trial, and whether they have ever failed to appear for trial in prior cases.”

House Democrats expressed their opposition to this bill in its committee report:

“Incarcerating people because they cannot afford to pay bail is unjust. Money bail is unfair to the indigent, unproductive, and expensive for American taxpayers. Unfortunately, H.R. 2152 appears to be intended to perpetuate this practice. Because of our concerns about the operation and impact of this measure, and because the bill fails to reform the system of money bail used by many jurisdictions in this country, we oppose H.R. 2152 and must respectfully dissent.”

This legislation passed the House Judiciary Committee on a 14-10 vote and has the support of 31 cosponsors, all of whom are Republicans.

Media:

• Sponsoring Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) Press Release
  
• CBO Cost Estimate