Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), running against Republican J.D. Vance for Ohio’s open United States Senate seat, once said he supported “eliminating” cash bail for suspects accused of crimes, calling it “inherently unfair.”
While campaigning for president in 2019, Ryan joined Jeanne Hruska of the left-wing New Hampshire American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to discuss so-called “mass incarceration” and cash bail, among other topics.
Ryan, when asked if he would support ending cash bail altogether, said “Yeah, I think,” and suggested that the practice of holding criminal suspects in jail before trial is “inherently unfair.”
The exchange went as follows:
HRUSKA: So a good portion of people who are in jail right now are there pre-trial, right, people who have not been convicted, they retain their presumption of innocence. And we’re seeing states end cash bail state by state. Would you support that nationally? [Emphasis added]
RYAN: Yeah. Yeah, I think. The bail system is inherently unfair. And what it does is it sets people down a spiral of not being able to go to work, not being able to take care of the kids, you have adverse childhood experiences, and all of the sudden a parent’s not at home … so I would be for eliminating it. [Emphasis added]
The suggestion puts Ryan on par with the likes of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), also running for Senate, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — both of whom are leading elected Democrat proponents of ending cash bail for accused criminals.
Ryan’s policy preference is already playing out — and spiking crime waves — in other states.
Since New York eliminated bail for a number of criminal offenses, including many violent crimes, the state has seen a crime wave, particularly in New York City. This week, the city recorded its eighth subway murder for the year.
New York Police Department data reveals that suspects freed from jail thanks to New York’s elimination of bail for a slew of crimes were rearrested for other crimes at rapid rates.
Meanwhile, Illinois is set to become the first state in the nation to entirely eliminate bail — a plan that will likely set free thousands of accused criminals when it takes effect in January 2023.
Violent crimes for which bail will be abolished in Illinois include second-degree murder, drug-induced homicide, kidnapping, robbery, burglary, aggravated battery, drug offenses, aggravated drunk driving, aggravated fleeing, arson, intimidation, and threatening a public official.
Illinois’s law also allows suspects accused of domestic violence to be released from jail after just 24 to 48 hours. If prosecutors cannot prove that the suspect is a direct threat to one or more people, they will be released from jail without bail.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.