The call came to Ezra Ritchin at 3:30 p.m. one day last week, from a Bronx public defender: A 19-year-old transgender man, a high school senior, had been picked up for petit theft. Although he had no criminal record, the judge had set bail at $1,000.

It might as well have been a million.

Even when bail is set at $1,000 or less, only 15 percent of misdemeanor defendants given it in New York City can make bail at arraignment. They are fortunate; those who wait for trial outside jail have a 70 percent chance their case will be dismissed or reduced to a noncriminal traffic-ticket-style violation.

Those who can’t make bail — more than 12,000 people in 2015 — have two choices.

One is to fight their case — and while that’s happening, wait in jail, probably Rikers Island. Very few people choose that option.

Instead, they eventually plead guilty — even if they are, in fact, not guilty. That lets them go home right away, but the resulting criminal record will follow them like a cloud, raining forever on their job and housing prospects.