Lancaster Bail Fund

Three people. Same number. Completely different stories.

$7,500 for a 20-year-old with no record who was scared, ran, and was tased by police.
$7,500 for a 60 + year old man in a spousal dispute.
$3,000 for a 40-year-old battling addiction, charged with PWID.

All of them would be sitting in jail right now if Lancaster’s community & the Lancaster Bail Fund didn’t step in. Not convicted. Not sentenced. Just held because of money.

And that’s the part people don’t want to sit with… bail isn’t about guilt, harm, safety or consistency. It’s a number. Assigned. And if you can’t meet it, you sit.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, about 70% of people in jails are pretrial, legally innocent and locked up simply because they can’t afford to pay.

So how does a scared 20-year-old, a man in a domestic dispute, and someone battling addiction all get translated into a dollar amount? And why is freedom something we’re expected to buy back?

This week alone, we paid over $18,000 to bring people home. Not because the system worked, but because we refused to let money decide who stays caged.

Lancaster is preparing to invest millions more into incarceration while we’re out here paying for people’s freedom one life at a time. This is what it means when we say freedom is priced, and poverty is punished.

Double Bail out mission Going Down rn 10.5k🐦‍🔥

It might be a double bail day 🐦‍🔥🐦‍🔥

Catch our lead advocate Jessica Mysteria & our Comrade Hannah Short at Elizabethtown College’s annual social justice fair, March 20th!!!

They will be presenting a breakout workshop on collective cognizance through Artivism. This workshop dives into county data on the ongoing Prison expansion project transpiring in Lancaster County and blends in a liberating Artivism experience.

Community Game Night & Pizza Party

Hosted by Jessica Mysteria
Lancaster Bail Fund

Think you know the law?
Put your knowledge to the test.

Join us for a fun, educational and interactive game night using the Crime No Crime legal education game, where teams work together to decide whether real-life scenarios are a crime… or no crime at all.

Through gameplay and discussion we’ll explore:

⚖️ How criminal law actually works
⚖️ The difference between civil vs criminal issues
⚖️ How intent matters in the justice system
⚖️ Why legal knowledge protects our communities

https://share.google/aimode/qHnL2ViBCmIQjbV5Q

📅 Saturday, May 16
⏰ 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM

📍 Hempfield Apothetique
Lancaster, Pennsylvania

https://hempfieldapothetique.com/contact/

🍕 Pizza Provided
🎲 Interactive Game Tournament
🏆 Team Competition & Prizes

Free and open to the public.

Bring a friend or a loved one and come learn how the legal system really works.

Join us today at 4:00 pm as we discuss the workings of our incarceration system and Pretrial detention in Lancaster Pa! As our county continues on with plans to build a 500 million dollar jail it is up to us to push back and hold them accountable for every person they plan to detain every dollar they plan to spend and to their commitment to protect our residents. If we want change we have to educate, and organize together!

World-record powerlifter comes to Lancaster after being featured in mural of inspirational women World record-holding powerlifter Tamara Walcott was in Lancaster on Wednesday for the unveiling of an inspirational women mural at the Bench Mark Program.