Paying the Price: How SB 63 Criminalizes Poverty in Georgia

Imagine being jailed for weeks—not because you are convicted of a crime, but simply because you can’t afford to pay your way out. This rings true for 93% of those arrested in Fulton County, who are impoverished. Unfortunately, this is not unique to Georgia; it reflects a broader national issue known as the criminalization of poverty. 

There is little hope for people entangled in the system to get out without becoming caught up in the debt, fees, and fines cycle. Georgia Senate Bill 63 (SB 63), passed in 2023, threatens to exacerbate this issue.

Effective July 1, 2024, SB 63 expands the list of crimes requiring cash bail to include 30 new felony and minor offenses. According to this law, those who are charged with these crimes must post bail to be freed from custody pending trial.

It also limits the number of times charitable organizations or individuals can post bail—to three times per year. While bail bond agents who use surety bonds face no such limits, these new rules primarily affect those who rely on charitable assistance for their release. 

This legislation marks a significant reversal of two decades of criminal justice reform in Georgia. In 2018, former Governor Nathan Deal led efforts to make the legal system fairer for people accused of nonviolent misdemeanors, focusing on reducing the reliance on cash bail. These reforms aimed to prevent people from being jailed simply because they couldn’t afford bail. 

However, SB 63 undoes much of this progress. Civil rights groups, legal experts, and criminal justice reform advocates have widely criticized the bill as a setback for fairness and justice in Georgia’s legal system.

Cash bail disproportionately impacts low-income individuals and families. Those who cannot afford to pay bail are left to languish in jail, sometimes for months, awaiting trial. In Georgia, this has led to a disturbing reality: 64% of the state’s jail population is in pretrial detention, meaning they have not yet been convicted of a crime. Among these individuals, 75% are being held for nonviolent offenses like property crimes and drug use.

The collateral consequences of pretrial detention are dire: job loss, family instability and an increased likelihood of being convicted. Additionally, burdens of fines, fees and lost income push people further into economic distress, with some even reoffending out of desperation to survive.

These statistics paint a grim picture of how the justice system operates for people experiencing poverty. For those without the financial means to pay bail, their lives are essentially on hold—jobs are lost, families are fractured and any hope of stability crumbles. Once in the system, it becomes increasingly difficult to escape. How many of these people are in jail not because they’re a flight risk or dangerous, but simply because they’re poor? 

SB 63 worsens this problem by expanding the list of offenses requiring bail to include nonviolent charges like failure to appear in court or obstruction of a police officer. These charges disproportionately affect low-income individuals who face structural barriers such as a lack of child care, transportation issues or rigid work schedules. 

For example, a single parent might miss a court date due to a lack of child care, or a minimum wage worker might not be able to get time off for a court appearance. Under SB 63, these individuals could be jailed and required to post bail for offenses that posed no risk to the community. This punitive approach punishes poverty rather than serving the public good. 

A viable solution to problems with cash bail is to implement a system where bail is assigned proportionally to income. This approach, often called “means-tested” or “income-based” bail, would ensure that bail amounts are set according to a person’s financial capacity, making the system fairer for all

Under this model, wealthy individuals wouldn’t be able to buy their way out of jail, while low-income defendants wouldn’t be punished for being poor. By tying bail to a person’s financial situation, Georgia could maintain the goal of ensuring court appearances without trapping vulnerable populations in cycles of debt and incarceration. 

Altogether, Georgia must take action to overturn SB 63. Repealing these bail restrictions would help prevent thousands of low-income Georgians from being unfairly detained pretrial for nonviolent offenses. Together with income-based bail reform, these changes would reduce the criminalization of poverty and create a fairer, more just approach to pretrial detention.

Ariana Malik is a second-year at the University of Georgia studying political science. She is a member of our criminal justice group.