Legendary American hip-pop artiste, Jay Z, who recently became the first rapper to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
and just became a new dad of twins, has revealed that he would help out fathers who are in jail because they can’t afford
bail, in celebration of Father’s day which is today.
Jay Z made this known in a powerful op-ed which was first sighted by TIME. In the
extensive and explosive piece, the rapper criticized the United State’s criminal justice for wrongful convictions. Read the full Op-
ed after the cut…
Seventeen years ago I made a song, “Guilty Until Proven Innocent.” I flipped the Latin phrase that is considered the bedrock principle of
our criminal justice system, ei
incumbit probatio qui dicit (the
burden of proof is on the one who
declares, not on one who denies). If
you’re from neighborhoods like the
Brooklyn one I grew up in, if you’re
unable to afford a private attorney,
then you can be disappeared into our
jail system simply because you can’t
afford bail. Millions of people are
separated from their families for
months at a time — not because they
are convicted of committing a crime,
but because they are accused of
committing a crime.
Scholars like Ruthie Gilmore,
filmmakers like Ava Duvernay, and
formerly incarcerated people like
Glenn Martin have all done work to
expose the many injustices of the
industry of our prison system.
Gilmore’s pioneering book, The
Golden Gulag, Duvernay’s
documentary 13th and Martin’s
campaign to close Rikers focus on the
socioeconomic, constitutional and
racially driven practices and polices
that make the U.S. the most
incarcerated nation in the world.
But when I helped produce this
year’s docuseries, Time: The Kalief
Browder Story, I became obsessed
with the injustice of the profitable
bail bond industry. Kalief’s family was
too poor to post bond when he was
accused of stealing a backpack. He
was sentenced to a kind of purgatory
before he ever went to trial.
The three years he spent in solitary
confinement on Rikers ultimately
created irreversible damage that lead
to his death at 22. Sandra Bland was
also forced to post bail after her
minor traffic infraction in Prairie
View, Texas, led to a false charge of
assaulting a public servant (the
officer who arrested her was later
charged with perjury regarding the
arrest). She was placed in a local jail
in a pre-incarcerated state. Again, she
was never convicted of a crime. On
any given day over 400,000 people,
convicted of no crime, are held in jail
because they cannot afford to buy
their freedom.
When black and brown people are
over-policed and arrested and
accused of crimes at higher rates
than others, and then forced to pay
for their freedom before they ever
see trial, big bail companies prosper.
This pre-incarceration conundrum is
devastating to families. One in 9 black
children has an incarcerated parent.
Families are forced to take on more
debt, often in predatory lending
schemes created by bail bond
insurers. Or their loved ones linger in
jails, sometimes for months—a
consequence of nationwide backlogs.
Every year $9 billion dollars are
wasted incarcerating people who’ve
not been convicted of a crime, and
insurance companies, who have
taken over our bail system, go to the
bank.
Last month for Mother’s Day,
organizations like Southerners on
New Ground and Color of Change did
a major fundraising drive to bail out
100 mothers for Mother’s Day. Color
of Change’s exposè on the for-profit
bail industry provides deeper strategy
behind this smart and inspiring
action. This Father’s Day, I’m
supporting those same organizations
to bail out fathers who can’t afford
the due process our democracy
promises. As a father with a growing
family, it’s the least I can do, but
philanthropy is not a long fix, we
have to get rid of these inhumane
practices altogether. We can’t fix our
broken criminal justice system until
we take on the exploitative bail
industry.
