We are currently working to bail out four individuals from pre-trial detention in Chicago and a sister from Kyrgyzstan and a brother from Mauritania incarcerated by ICE  in another state; their total bails equal $80,500! Whatever we raise will go directly towards paying bonds. The more we raise, the more BELIEVERS we can free!

***Successful Match!: the American Muslim Community Foundation has offered to match donations up to $14,000. Thank you for helping us reach our funding-raising goal!***

It's Ramadan! Pay your zakat to bail out believers and support a movement to end mass incarceration.

WHO WE ARE 

Believers Bail Out is a community-led effort to bail out Muslims in pretrial incarceration as a form of zakat. By paying bonds, Believers Bail out restores the presumption of innocence before trial and enables recipients to remain free while fighting their cases. Believers Bail Out also pays immigration bonds; similar to pre-trial detention, immigration detention punishes poor people who cannot afford to pay their bonds and often results in deportation or indefinite detention.

It is within our capacity and our duty as Muslims to be part of ending this cycle; a cycle that criminalizes poverty and is inherently racist in nature.

Zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam, is an annual tax on wealth. The Qur’an (9:60) specifies eight uses for zakat, including helping the poor (al-fuaqara) and the needy (al-masakin), freeing of slaves or captives (al-raqib), the debt-ridden (al-gharimin), and the wayfarer (ibn al-sabil). People being held in pretrial or immigration detention because they can’t afford bail qualify for zakat. 

WHAT WE DO

This year, our goals are to: 

• Raise $225,000
• Free 20 believers from pretrial incarceration and immigration detention
• Expand our bond and post-bond support work from Chicago to three additional pilot locations throughout the United States
• Work with the Coalition to End Money Bond to abolish money bail in Illinois
• Educate Muslims around the country on how the prison industrial complex, anti-Muslim racism, and anti-blackness are connected in order to build and mobilize a Muslim movement to end mass incarceration.

Along with providing bail and support for individuals released on bond in Chicago, IL, which is home to the largest single-site jail in the United States, Believers Bail Out also hosts fundraising iftars, webinars, and teach-ins in Chicago and across the country, to support legislative efforts to abolish money bond and to raise awareness within Muslim communities on the injustices of the bail bond system and the broader prison-industrial complex.

THE NEED

Right now, there are over 2 million incarcerated people in the United States, predominantly Black and Latinx. Almost half a million of these people are being held on pre-trial bond (bail). Cash bail penalizes poverty and reproduces racism. In 2015, nationwide the median bail was $10,000, while the median pre-incarceration annual income of people incarcerated was $15,000. Black people are twice as likely to be held pretial as white people and Muslims in pretrial detention face an increased risk of victimization, surveillance and denial of religious freedom in the prison system due to anti-Muslim racism (Islamophobia). 

While the criminal legal system proclaims the principle of “innocent before proven guilty,” the reality is that people who have not been convicted of any crime can be jailed indefinitely because they are poor and unable to pay bond. In addition to being jailed without a conviction, while in pretrial incarceration they can lose their jobs, their children, their homes and even their lives.

In addition to the over 2 million people incarcerated in jails and prisons, more than 45,000 people are being held in immigration detention in ICE facilities on a daily basis. Any non-citizen without legal status who comes to the attention of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) can be detained for deportation proceedings. Lawful permanent residents who have been charged with criminal offenses and all undocumented people can also be detained by immigration. Many detainees are asylum seekers, fleeing from violence in their home countries. Often, immigrants are detained after arrest by local law enforcement, regardless of the severity of the alleged offense. People whose criminal or misdemeanor charges are dropped can still be held in detention for their immigration case.

Similar to the criminal legal system, while detained, many immigrants lose their jobs, housing and custody of their children -- in addition to enduring the hardship of incarceration. While people facing jail time for criminal charges have the right to a lawyer, immigrants in detention may never speak to legal counsel. It is extremely difficult for immigrants to find representation from behind bars. Immigrants who get out are five times more likely to find a lawyer; and immigrants with legal counsel are twice as likely to win their cases.

GET INVOLVED

Join us in the fight to end mass incarceration! See how you can be involved with Believers Bail Out: https://believersbailout.org/take-action

Please support our work and consider ways to extend our work into your own communities. Paying bonds is one small thing we can do, because not being in a cage is always better than being in one, but our ultimate goal must be prison abolition and the building of community infrastructures that respond to the call of our Lord - for the righteous believers “to feed for the love of Allah, the indigent, the orphan, and the captive” (Qur’an 76:8)

For more information visit: https://believersbailout.org