Philadelphia Eagles Fight Mass Incarceration

Mass incarceration is an ongoing issue throughout the United States, and Philadelphia has some of the highest incarceration rates in the country. Many of those incarcerated simply cannot pay their bail, so they are forced to live out their sentence in jail. Research from Princeton found that black defendants are more often than not subject to higher bail and longer jail time. This injustice hinders those who are minorities as well as those who are in poverty, and often those come hand in hand.

Many of us wonder what can be done about these major injustices and how we can help the issue of overcrowded jails and those who cannot post bail. The Philadelphia Eagles decided to do help with the issue.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday this year, the Philadelphia Eagles football team raised $50,000 in bail, helping nine defendants get out of jail for the holiday. The team itself raised $25,000 and their Eagles Social Justice Fund raised the other $25,000. The $50,000 was given to the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, started in 2017. The organization works toward reforming the cash bailout system that has oppressed thousands of defendants in poverty.

Just days after the bailout, the Eagle’s Player Coalition and it’s co-founder, Eagle’s player Malcolm Jenkins hosted a services fair to help the nine defendants be reintegrated into society. Although there are thousands of defendants in Philadelphia jails that still need to be bailed out, helping to release just nine of them is a significant step in the right direction toward reforming our justice system – or injustice system.

If just one football team can raise $50,000 for the justice of nine individuals, imagine what can be done if all major league teams did the same. Imagine if all large corporations were to raise money as well. The issue of mass incarceration often seems like too big of an issue for us as individuals to take action. But if we band together and help raise money across the country, we can bring justice to millions of defendants who are serving a sentence simply because they do not have the money to bail themselves out.

In California, we now have a bill that was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in August that calls for a no cash bail system. It is now replaced with a “risk-based” system that will be decided according to each individual county. This bill aims to treat both the rich and the poor fairly in terms of who remains in jail before their court date and who does not. To learn more about this bill, read this article from the Sacramento Bee.

Do some research and discover what your local community/county is doing to help those who are wrongly incarcerated.