ACLU Supporter –

Money should never determine someone's freedom. Yet every year, millions of people in the United States choose between paying bail or being locked up until their cases go to court.

Your only option to avoid jail if you can't afford bail? Pay a non-refundable fee to a for-profit bail bonds company. This $2 billion industry traps people into a cycle of debt and fees – and unsurprisingly harms Black and low-income communities the most. In fact, bail amounts assigned to Black men average 35% higher than those for white men.

Big insurance corporations are propping up this toxic system, and its largest investor is the Canadian-based company Fairfax Financial Holdings – run by CEO and chairman Prem Watsa. That's why we're urging Prem Watsa to exit the U.S. bail industry, and we need your help.

Mr. Watsa was just appointed co-chair to the recently-formed "Canadian Council of Business Leaders Against Anti-Black Systemic Racism," a group primarily established in response to the George Floyd protests. He spoke at the council's first interactive virtual summit this Monday – where he and others committed to taking substantive actions to end anti-Black systemic racism.

Considering this recent pledge – which we commend – the ACLU and Color Of Change co-signed a letter to Mr. Watsa. In it, we call on his company to cut ties with an industry that fuels mass incarceration and perpetuates racial inequities. We have yet to receive a response.

But there's real incentive for Fairfax to make a change, ACLU Supporter – and real opportunity for us to take down for-profit bail because of it. Bail insurance only represents 0.16% of Fairfax's overall insurance business. And most of its global insurance peers exited bail insurance in the last year – including Tokio Marine Holdings, R&Q, and Endeavour Capital – an exodus made possible in large part through our collective activism.

We can make these facts clear to Prem Watsa – and let him know for-profit bail, which isn't even legal in Canada, is also completely counter to the work to end anti-Black racism.

Send this message to Prem Watsa's inbox today, and together, we can push him to divest from an industry exploiting and oppressing Black and Brown people.

Thanks for taking action,

Udi Ofer
ACLU Deputy National Political Director