Kelan Lyons // CTMirror.org

Originations like the Connecticut Bail Fund, a New Haven-based group help people post bail so they can await trial at home. Jewu Richardson, the nonprofit’s co-executive director, said it is a “harsh, sad reality” that families have to rely on community events and a GoFundMe to post bail.

One of the states that has scrapped cash bail is New Jersey. The result: thousands fewer people are held in jail who otherwise might not have been able to purchase their freedom. Yet, in some cases, Connecticut inmates stay in jail for years, awaiting a jury to find someone innocent because they can’t afford to post bail.

There were almost 450 people in Connecticut correctional facilities on Jan. 1 held on bonds between $20,000 and $50,000 while they awaited trial. If they posted bail, they’d be able to fight their case from outside the confines of a jail cell. If not, they’d stay locked up until the case was resolved — when charges are dropped, when they plead guilty or when a jury decides their fate.

The state will no longer have the ability to claw back money that formerly incarcerated people win through lawsuits — unless individuals were convicted of “certain serious crimes.”Legislators considered a bill this session that would have eliminated the state’s authority to collect so-called prison debt if formerly incarcerated people came upon a windfall via lottery winnings, inheritance or a lawsuit. But despite receiving a lot of media attention throughout the session, the bill did not get called for a vote in the House or Senate.

Senators gave final approval Wednesday night to a bill intended to address juvenile crimes by making modest changes to the judicial system in an attempt to hold them accountable for breaking the law.

The bill is meant to address systemic issues raised by the abuse of patient William Shehadi, Jr.

For the second year in a row, Connecticut lawmakers passed a bill to limit the Department of Correction’s use of solitary confinement on those in the state’s prisons and jails.

Passage gives Republicans and Democrats a talking point on addressing car thefts as November elections loom.

Members of the Judiciary Committee approved two multimillion-dollar settlements Monday — one dealing with the prevalence of hepatitis C among those in the state’s prisons and jails and one involving the abuse of a patient at Whiting Forensic Hospital.

On Monday, now-retired Hartford officer, Jill Kidik, testified against a bill that would make changes to the Psychiatric Security Review Board, which supervises people like the prisoner believed to have stabbed her in the neck — those charged with crimes but ultimately acquitted because of serious mental health conditions.