By Sonali Kolhatkar for Yes!Magazine.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the YES! Media-Public News Service Collaboration

The United States incarcerates more people than nearly any other country in the world. Among the millions in detention at any given time are hundreds of thousands being held in jails. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, “More than 400,000 people in the U.S. are currently being detained pretrial – in other words, they are awaiting trial and still legally innocent.” A significant portion of these people are “jailed pretrial simply because they can’t afford money bail.” Increasingly, nonprofit bail funds, such as the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF), are stepping in to offer an alternative to the predatory bail bonds industry.

Elizer Darris, MFF’s co-executive director, explains, “Historically, people have been released on what’s called their own recognizance—meaning their word that they will come back.” But, he says, the reality is that “there has not been any type of causal connection between bail and someone’s reappearance.”

Yet there is one causal connection that deeply concerns Darris: the link between the skin color of people who are arrested, and an assumption of their guilt. High on the list of issues that MFF tackles is “the criminalization of Black and Brown people” and “the automatic determination that because of how I look I must be guilty.”

“Something that a lot of people don’t know, and it actually may shock people,” Darris says, is that “jails actually have worse living conditions than prisons.” He says the criminal justice system essentially holds poor people hostage to “terrible jail conditions.” 

“Our organization exists so that [prosecutors] aren’t able to use coercive practices like jailing in order to get people to plead guilty to offenses that they otherwise would not be guilty to,” Darris says. MFF makes bail payments on behalf of people who are jailed and who otherwise would be unable to afford the bail that buys them their freedom while they await trial or formal charges.

The organization, which was the focus of news coverage and donations during the racial justice uprisings of 2020, is now facing a Republican-led state bill that would make it illegal to operate a nonprofit bail fund in Minnesota.

Darris, who views the entirety of the criminal justice system as problematic, says, “What we have decided to do as an organization was to have a historical view to recognize that many of the policies and practices that we see today have their roots in slavery in the United States.” Given such a framing, he sees it as “an obligation to disrupt those practices, and that’s precisely what we are doing.”

“Our organization isn’t just focused on bail funds,” Darris says. “It’s called the ‘Freedom Fund,’” because that name reflects a “broader definition that takes on the criminal justice system.”

“We are trying to disrupt some of the predatory practices that are happening within bail,” Darris says. “But what we’ve seen is that’s just not enough.”

As a nonprofit, MFF is prohibited from participating in political activism—so it has recently expanded its work into a second organization, a 501(c)(4) organization called MFF Action, whose function will be to “actually take action to put boots on the ground to door-knock within our community to not just support legislation, but to craft legislation.”

“If you can’t change the policies, you change the policymakers, you change the people who will put community at the center of their decision-making,” Darris says.

High on MFF Action’s list of priorities is gaining access to better data. Currently, district courts have limited public access data about who is required to pay bail, which makes it harder for activists to make their case against predatory bail practices.

Additionally, Darris says MFF Action will work to “make sure that bails aren’t being issued on some of the exceedingly low-level offenses that, quite frankly, do not impact public safety in the least bit.”

He says, “Part of the U.S. Constitution is that you cannot be given the bail that is excessive. You have to take into account the person’s ability to pay. [Prosecutors are] not doing that here in Minnesota. And so, we are fighting to make sure that bails aren’t just frivolously being given out.”


Sonali Kolhatkar wrote this article for YES! Magazine.


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Imagine being locked in a cell for 23 hours a day, under constant artificial light, with no human contact for months or even years. It is the reality for thousands of incarcerated people across the U.S. and new research confirmed the damage extends far beyond psychological trauma.

Michaela Romero, neural systems and behavior researcher at the University of Washington, is studying the effects using an unexpected subject: bumblebees. Her work reveals how solitary confinement biologically alters the brain and body, with particularly urgent implications for states such as Mississippi where extreme isolation remains standard practice. Romero's research, conducted in the ZYWang Lab, replicated prison-like solitary conditions with bumblebee colonies.

She said the findings are alarming.

"Twice as many bees died in isolated housing as opposed to group housings," Romero reported. "I had two treatments. One set of bees were completely alone in their cells and then other ones were in groups of four, under all of the same conditions. The ones in isolated housing died twice as much as the group housing."

Romero's research adds to growing evidence prolonged isolation may cause genetic and neurological harm, potentially increasing risks of aggression, depression, and premature death.

Mississippi's Parchman Farm, already under federal scrutiny for extreme isolation, denied medical care and 24-hour lighting, now faces new questions as the study suggested such conditions could inflict lasting damage.

Romero's study exposed troubling contradictions in treatment standards which would violate ethical guidelines for laboratory animals.

"I have to provide day and night lighting to octopuses," Romero pointed out. "If I did not, they would take them away immediately, yet they are not having a problem with the fact that humans in solitary confinement in our state are exposed to 24-hour light and have for decades."

For Romero, the research is personal. Her fiancé, Trevor Hendrix, has endured years in Washington's solitary confinement under conditions which would be illegal for lab animals. Her findings revealed solitary confinement is not just punishment but systemic harm with lasting consequences.


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April is National Second Chance Month but across West Virginia, resources to help people leaving prison find gainful employment are dwindling.

According to data from the Prison Policy Initiative, out of more than 50,000 people in 2010, 33% found no employment in the four years following release.

Patience Lewis-Walker, deputy executive director of the Center for Employment Opportunities, in the South Mountain Plains Region, said the benefits of employment programs far outweigh the costs.

"We are able to also change communities, change this intergenerational cycle of poverty and incarceration, and really make longer-term impacts across our nation," Lewis-Walker explained.

The Mountain State releases around 37,000 men and nearly 13,000 women from its prisons and jails each year, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Nationwide, more than half million people are released from state and federal prison each year.

Walker added entry-level, on-the-job learning programs can stabilize families and grow the local workforce.

"As they're matriculating through our program, they then begin to learn other skills and have more opportunities to really create more advancement and more of a career pathway," Walker outlined.

Without housing, it is difficult for individuals to obtain employment. According to federal data, at least one-quarter of returning individuals leave jails and prisons without a stable living situation. Research showed people who were previously incarcerated are around 10 times more likely to experience homelessness than the general population.


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As Mississippi grapples with one of the nation's highest incarceration rates, a new national campaign highlights the economic and social toll of prison recidivism - and the proven benefits of investing in re-entry programs.

This week, the Center for Employment Opportunities launched "At What Cost?" The campaign says redirecting funds from incarceration to job training could save taxpayers billions and reduce repeat offenses. In Mississippi, nearly 30% of people who are released from prison are back within three years, according to state data.

Center president Samra Haider said the math is simple.

"We're spending millions to keep people in cycles of poverty and incarceration, and that can be all the way from policing, sentencing, keeping people incarcerated for a long time - then, like I said, that cycle of incarceration," she said. "So, sometimes 60% in certain jurisdictions of people will be reincarcerated within a year of release."

The campaign cited research showing every dollar invested in re-entry programs yields $3 in savings by reducing recidivism. In Mississippi, where annual prison costs exceed a $500 million, advocates have said the solution can't wait.

The group will detail its proposal in a webinar on Tuesday.

Patience Lewis-Walker, the center's deputy executive director for Southern programs, said immediate employment changes lives.

"Individuals who are coming home from incarceration have significant amount of barriers," she said, "and if we can alleviate at least some of the financial burden - by providing them an opportunity for employment and training - then that helps to just kind of set that foundation."

Lewis-Walker noted that Mississippi faces particular challenges, such as housing shortages and scarce mental-health services, that often derail re-entry efforts. Nationally, the group estimates the $81 billion spent annually on incarceration could instead fund tuition-free community college across the country.