Winning the Fight to Bring Justice to the Jailhouse

Alec Karakatsanis doesn’t mince words when he talks about fighting injustices in the legal system. “We’ve all become really desensitized to the brutality inherent in putting a human being in a cage,” he says. “We’re trying to use civil-rights laws and the stories of our clients and their families to resensitize people who work in the legal system to what it means to take a human being and her body and put it in a cage away from her family and her home.”

The Influencers: People Quietly Changing the Nonprofit World

Meet charity movers and shakers who are doing exciting things. They’re working under the radar but making a big impact.

• A First-Generation College Grad Helps Others Get Their Degrees
• Pressing Foundations to Fight Opioid Abuse
• How One Group Crafts Data-Smart Solutions on Land Use
• Ending Poverty, One Family at a Time

Civil Rights Corps, the small legal nonprofit Mr. Karakatsanis started in 2016, is part of a growing crusade against today’s cash-bail system. Any given night, almost half a million people sit in jail because they can’t afford bail.

The group has filed a barrage of class-action lawsuits against jurisdictions, arguing they discriminate against the poor who languish in jail awaiting trial. Wealthier defendants can post bond and leave. For someone already struggling to make ends meet, that long-term detention can mean the loss of a job, housing, or even child custody.

Early wins by the Civil Rights Corps have been impressive. In April, a federal judge ruled that the bail system for misdemeanor defendants in Harris County, Tex. — home to Houston, and the third-most-populous county in the country — is unconstitutional. More than 6,000 people have been released.

After this and other victories, the threat of a lawsuit is enough to persuade some jurisdictions to make reforms. “We talk to people and we say, ‘Are you willing to work with us to implement these reforms without litigation?’ " Mr. Karakatsanis says.

Even so, he is steeled for a long battle. “There are discrete victories here and there that feel really good,” he says, “until you take a step back and you realize that the forces you’re up against are so powerful that it’s very dangerous to start patting yourself on the back.”