Malcolm Jenkins, the Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro safety, has been tackling an off-field issue for more than a year, criminal justice reforms.
He travels the country, apart from his cross-continental schedule for football games, to meet with some of the more progressive local prosecutors to push for changes in court and prison systems.
On Monday, he and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner announced that they would work together, along with other leaders including the head of the Philadelphia Public Defender's Office, to reform the city's cash bail system.
They blamed cash bail for mass incarceration and disproportionately jailing poor people and people of color.
"We've identified the cash bail system as something we want to focus on, and eradicate, especially here in Philadelphia," Jenkins said at a press conference in the Kensington neighborhood. A community organization, Impact Services, on East Allegheny Avenue, hosted the event.
Krasner said his office would look at ways to change cash bail.
"Anything that my office can do to make sure that the people who are in jail for a good reason, not because of poverty, we're going to do," he said, seated next to Jenkins and Philadelphia Chief Public Defender Kier Bradford-Grey.
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Bradford-Grey and Krasner described each other as partners in the reform of the cash bail system.
"This is a reflection of the reality that it is movements that change things," Krasner said. "The way this works is that people, and groups, and activists, and communities get together and they tell government what to do. And that's what's happening here. We are seeing what a movement for a criminal justice reform, which is the civil rights issue of our time, looks like."
