One part of a newspaper series, headlined, "Violent Criminals Flout Broken Bail System," reported that Philadelphia faced a fugitive crisis.
The article reported that a staggering 47,000 defendants were loose on Philadelphia warrants for skipping hearings and trials, and that Philadelphia was tied with New Jersey's Essex County, home of Newark, for the nation's worst fugitive rate.
Drawing upon its own analysis of court statistics, the newspaper reported that a third of all defendants in Philadelphia skipped one or more court hearings.