Alamance County’s poverty rate is higher than the North Carolina state average. It’s one of the reasons that Down Home and our members organize against discriminatory pretrial incarceration based on income. Folks are more likely to win cases when they’re fighting from a place of freedom — that’s the driver behind our bail fund.

Sometimes just a few hundred dollars can be the difference between going home to your family or staying in jail for months. As a result, poor people end up stuck in jail simply because they are poor. In the meantime, jobs are lost, children are left uncared for, and things fall apart. Read more about the problems of cash bail here.