The City Council’s news release also stated that New York City had “claimed that it created ‘a $1 bail alert to notify both court personnel and the defense attorney when a defendant may be held solely due to $1 bail,’” but, the council continued, “the $1 bail alert the city was touting was not actually operational, and, as DOC testified in December 2018, only incarcerated individuals were being notified about $1 bail.”

The new legislation “will significantly enhance communication and implement a new structure for $1 bail,” the council added.

Elena Weissmann, director at The Bronx Freedom Fund, said in the statement, “For New Yorkers to languish in jail on $1 is unconscionable. The fact that we’re still trying to work around the $1 bail issue so low-income New Yorkers are not needlessly incarcerated pretrial, highlights the absurdity of the larger cash bail system.”

Added Amanda Lawson, founding director of the Dollar Bail Brigade, “Our movement of nearly 1,000 New Yorkers, who have been moved by the urgency of this issue to give their time and energy to posting these $1 bails and getting our neighbors out of pretrial jail cells, represents a widespread recognition of the inherent injustices of bail and pretrial detention and the need for change.”