More people can be denied bail after Texas voters pass Proposition 3. What happens now?

This amendment requires judges and magistrates to deny bail to people accused of certain violent or sexual felonies.

The offenses affected by Propostion 3 are: capital murder, murder, aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury or using certain weapons, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, aggravated sexual assault, indecency with a child, human trafficking and continuous human trafficking.

“This is giving the courts a new tool that they did not have before, that in these enumerated offenses, if there is a public safety risk or proof that they are not gonna show up to court, that they then can hold them without any amount of money that will let them out,” said Lisel Petis, the policy director for the criminal justice and civil liberties team at the R Street Institute.

Opponents, including civil rights and criminal justice organizations, say the majority of people let out on bail follow the law, and higher-profile cases of violence committed on bail are more rare. Opponents also argue keeping more people in pretrial detention can lead to high rates of reoffending and other negative socioeconomic outcomes — especially for low-income people that aren’t always able to afford bail.

These groups advocate instead for community-based care that addresses the root causes of crime and imposing the least restrictive conditions for bail as the state constitution requires. Denying bail or unconditional release aren’t the only options, Petis said.

“Maybe they’ll get an ankle monitor or they’ll get some pretrial services or supervision,” she said. “There’s different components even past that — or they may still get a high cash bail amount.”