Every summer, Americans celebrate their independence with fireworks and barbecues. Freedom, we’re told , is something we must never take for granted. Since our earliest days, we’ve been conditioned to view America as the “land of the free.” After all, liberty is central to our national identity, declared by our founding fathers as an inalienable right . As the age-old mantra goes : Freedom isn’t free.

Freedom certainly has a price, and thanks to the cash bail system, that price has become outrageously expensive. In a country that jails 2 million people in over 4,000 prisons , thousands of our citizens pay cash bail to secure their release before they even face conviction. For a nation founded on the principle of innocent until proven guilty , it seems that freedom is a lot

See Full Page