The Bail Trap
A Scandal at the Heart of American Justice
$35.65
- Hardcover
224 pages
- Release Date
10 November 2026
Summary
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
“When bail is set unreasonably high, people are behind bars only because they are poor… . They don’t have money to get out of jail and they certainly don’t have money to flee anywhere.” -Loretta Lynch, former United States Attorney General
Every night in America, nearly half a million people go to sleep in jail cells without having been …
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781620978429 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1620978423 |
| Author: | Robin Steinberg, Camilo Ramirez |
| Publisher: | The New Press |
| Imprint: | The New Press |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 224 |
| Release Date: | 10 November 2026 |
| Dimensions: | 14mm x 139mm x 215mm |
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Critics Review
“The Bail Trap should be read by everyone concerned about the efficacy of our criminal punishment system and its aspiration to achieve justice. The history of bail’s transformation from its inception as a method for pretrial release to a mechanism for detention and its pernicious consequences is explained and examined clearly.”—Judge George C. Eskin (Ret.), Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara
“Within the U.S. criminal justice system there is no other policy that so dramatically illustrates the gap in obtaining justice between the wealthy and the poor as the widespread imposition of money bail. The Bail Trap makes a compelling case for a broad challenge to this shameful practice.”—Marc Mauer, former executive director, The Sentencing Project, and author of Race to Incarcerate
“A critical analysis of a terrible injustice that keeps many innocent people in jail.”—Stephen B. Bright, former director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and co-author of The Fear of Too Much Justice
“A clear and concise primer on a destructive but widely misunderstood part of the criminal process. The Bail Trap corrects misconceptions, and provides a much-needed education on how the bail system operates, how it fails, and the powerful interests who profit from keeping it in place. Most importantly, it lays out a plan for a better system.”—Radley Balko, author of The Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces
Robin Steinberg
Robin Steinberg is the founder and former CEO of the Bail Project, a national nonprofit launched in 2018 that pays bail for thousands of incarcerated people every year and works toward systemic change. She is a TED speaker, the author of The Courage of Compassion, and the co-author of The Bail Trap, with Camilo Ramirez.
Camilo Ramirez is the Bail Project’s former chief strategy officer. He is the co-author of The Bail Trap, with Robin Steinberg.
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