I think there’s a big misunderstanding of bail in the US (something for this thread), where people tend to think that someone in jail prior to trial is being punished in some fashion, and letting them out on bail is some sort of miscarriage of justice/letting criminals go free.
It’s not. Bail’s just substituting money for detainment as a guarantee that the person will show up in court to face justice. And bail’s typically set according to the gravity of the crime; if someone’s willing to risk some colossal amount of money so a murderer can be free prior to their trial, that’s fine, in that he’ll likely show up. He’s only been charged, not tried and convicted at that point; any jail is merely to make sure he has his day in court, not to punish him.
But people don’t really get that. And some who advocate against bail don’t get it either; they’re still looking at the jail time as punitive, and approaching getting rid of it from that perspective.
Maybe the legal system should separate pre-trial detainment from jail proper, and make it far more comfortable than jail is?