Black Lives Matter of Little Rock raising money to bail out women before Mother's Day

Black Lives Matter of Little Rock has created a fundraiser to post bail for jailed black women in Pulaski County to reunite them with their children before Mother’s Day.

The fundraiser was inspired by the Black Mama’s Bail Out Day — a national effort to get black mothers out of jail spearheaded by Southerners On New Ground, a regional nonprofit. The day is “part of the growing movement to end mass criminalization and modern bondage,” according to the organization’s website.

Little Rock members of Black Lives Matter, an organization born in the aftermath of police-involved fatal shootings of unarmed black teenagers, decided to follow suit. The group posted a link online and scrolled through the Pulaski County inmate roster to find black mothers, with bonds that could feasibly be paid, said Zach Miller, who is on the group's leadership team.

As of Thursday, the group has raised $670, Miller said, enough to bail out at least two women.

Black Lives Matter has identified a few jailed women and have reached out to their families, Miller said. They are not naming the women at this time to protect their privacy, he said.

The organization will accept funds through Saturday and is also asking relatives of jailed black women to contact the group, he said.

Aside from reuniting families, Miller said, the fundraiser serves to highlight how high incarceration rates and lofty bails entrap black women for months while they await trial.

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The inmates that Black Lives Matter considered are being held on lower bonds for misdemeanor charges and are mostly nonviolent offenders, Miller said, though he added: “You can’t even call them offenders because they haven’t gone to trial yet.”

About 60 percent of the 721,300 people confined in county and city jails on an average day nationwide were awaiting court action on a current charge, according to 2015 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The Pulaski County jail handled 37,082 people in 2016, according to sheriff’s office data. That number includes those who were processed as well as those who were already being held in-custody. Of that group, 10,550, or 28 percent, were women.

Males spent an average of 18 days at the jail in 2016 while females were there for an average of 6.5 days, Maj. Matthew Briggs said in an email. The sheriff’s office only tracks the gender, not the race, of its inmates, he said.

To be released on bail in Arkansas, a person typically has to secure the money through some form of bond, which includes fees, and can also be required to put down a 10 percent cash deposit.

For poor black women, coming up with that money is often not possible, Miller said. While they remain in jail, they can lose their jobs, which ensnares black women in what he called a “vicious cycle” of mounting fines and fees.

Miller said the fundraiser was also spurred by two recent in-custody deaths at the Pulaski County jail as well as mounting national attention being paid to the deaths of incarcerated black women.

Trillus Smith, 22, was found unresponsive in her Pulaski County jail cell Feb. 16, 2017, two weeks after she was arrested in the stabbing of a hospital security guard, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported. A family member told the paper she was seeking help for “psychological issues” the night she was arrested.

Smith’s body showed no signs of trauma and was sent to the state Crime Lab for an autopsy to determine a cause of death, authorities said.

Sharon Lavette Alexander, 41, was booked into jail Dec. 13, 2016, and died the next night of a fatal asthma attack after deputies confiscated her inhaler. Alexander’s husband said she called him to complain the jail “would not provide her with her medication,” according to a sheriff’s office report quoted by the paper.

An investigation found no criminal wrongdoing in Alexander's death. The jail has since changed its policy on confiscating inhalers.

As of Thursday, about 15 people have donated to the Little Rock fundraiser, according to the website. One of those backers is Diego Barrera of Fayetteville, who said he donated because it “just seems like the right place to invest money."

It's important "to support black lives, especially black women, who appear to be more marginalized in America,” Barrera said.

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