More than two dozen people crowded into a conference room at the North Carolina Judicial Center Wednesday for the first meeting of the Pretrial Working Group Subcommittee of the NC Courts Commission.

On Friday, October 12, the North Carolina Courts Commission’s Subcommittee on Pretrial Release will hold its first meeting. The preliminary meeting, to be held at the North Carolina Judicial Center at 901 Corporate Center Drive in Raleigh, will be to set goals for the Pretrial Release Work Group going forward.

When Cherise Fanno Burdeen talks about the U.S. justice system, she’s speaking from more than 20 years of experience. After getting her Master’s degree in Criminal Justice at Indiana University, she worked with the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice, did post-9/11 work with the Department of Homeland Security and field work with the Safer Foundation in Chicago.

In a 2016 report, the North Carolina Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice called for pretrial justice reform – reform that would move the state away from a de facto system of requiring all criminal defendants to post a cash bail in order be released from jail prior to their day in court.

David Clark works in the Guilford County Public Defender’s Office, representing clients charged with high level felonies. All of them are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but that doesn’t mean they receive equal treatment.

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NC Policy Watch reporter Joe Killian discusses North Carolina’s broken cash-bail system and what experts are saying we should do about it to improve equity in our justice system.

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Serena Sebring and Kayla Hartsfield were arrested last month after chaining themselves to the gates outside the Durham County Detention Center. The two women, activists with Southerners On New Ground (SONG), were trying to bring attention to a cash bail system they say has utterly failed. Studies show the current system disproportionately jails minorities, the poor and those accused of non-violent crimes while failing to effectively assure defendants make their court dates in higher numbers than those who are offered alternatives to cash bail.

When the North Carolina Courts Commission meets Friday, it will begin to take a look at an issue making national headlines: bail reform. Last month, California became the first state in the country to officially end cash bail. Republicans and Democrats in the state came together to end a system the Chief Justice of the California called “outdated, unsafe and unfair.”

Earlier this month, the youth-led group Triangle People Power held a showing of “The Bail Trap,” a documentary that sheds light on the broken cash bail system.

When Sarah Jessenia Lopez plead guilty last month to attempted notary fraud related to bail bonding, it was not earth shattering. After all, fraud and criminality in North Carolina’s for-profit bail industry has been rampant for years.

In the roar of a legislative session that has seen fights over constitutional amendments, hog farms and the power of the legislature itself, two lesser-discussed bills may benefit North Carolina’s politically connected for-profit bail industry.

This week the ACLU of North Carolina announced an initiative to end cash bail in North Carolina. Regular Policy Watch readers will be familiar with our recent series of stories on the bail bond industry, the inequity of cash bail and the ways in which both impact those in poverty.

Gregory Weeks had a distinguished career as as judge for Fourth Division of the Superior Court of North Carolina and Senior Resident Superior Court Judge for the 12th Judicial District.

The inequity of the cash bail system is something Orange County has long understood. The county is one of dozens across the state that supports pretrial services - a jail alternative system that identifies poor people who are low risks for violence and likely to show for their court dates and allows them to be released on very low or no bail.