bail bonds

I find certain things in life to be plain disgusting.  Bail bonds is one of them.  Since majority of my blog audience consists of college students from a middle class family and have never (I'm assuming) been arrested, I will start by explaining how bail works, and explain my disgust.  And no, I have never been arrested, unless your definition of arrested includes sitting behind a police car before being released 30 minutes later.

When you're caught breaking the law, you are required to stay in jail before seeing the judge, which can be problematic if the date of offense and date of trial are months apart.  At one end of spectrum, you have a minor offense such as traffic violation where it makes no sense to keep people in jail, while the other end of spectrum includes murderers and rapists, where it makes no sense to allow them to roam around.   

But what if the offense is somewhere in between, such as assault?  (the difference between assault and battery:  assault is reasonable physical threat, while battery involves physical contact.  Therefore, battery almost always includes assault, while assault does not always include battery - i.e. waving a knife would be assault, but not battery).  Remember, these people are only charged for their crimes- they may not be guilty, and some assault may be more serious than others. 



So that's where bail bonds come in.  Instead of staying in jail, the defendant is given a chance to pay a large sum of money.  If the defendant shows up to the trial later, the money is given back - if not, the money is lost.  The law has a good intention - to provide motivation for offenders to show up for trial instead of running off.

It's easy to see how bail bonds turned this whole "trying-to-make-people-come-out-to-courts" into a huge business.  For example, if the amount of bail is $30,000 (which most people don't have), the bail bond company will typically charge 10% premium, or $3,000, and pay the court $30,000 bail.  So far so good right?  The bail bond shops charge you a huge premium while taking a huge risk - if the defendant does not show up to court, they lose 30 grand, if they do show up, they pocket $3,000.  Well, here's where it gets interesting.

Shady point #1:  Most bail bond companies actually won't pay the court $30,000 until you don't show up.  How can they do that when individuals have to pay?  Lobby of course.  Laws are only as good as people who write them.  "Only registered bail bonds entities shall..."

Shady point #2:  In order to obtain a bail bond, you must sign a crazy shady paper (more on this later), and you have to give them a collateral in case you run off.  And if it's not yours, it's even better.  For example, you may sign up your mom's house or a car (with her permission of course).  What does this mean?  That means even if you don't show up, the bail bond shops don't really have much to lose since they can just sell your mother's house or a car and pay the court.  So that 10% is not really a price for taking a risk; it's pure profit.



Shady point #3:  In most states, bail bonds corporations have lobbied the government so that they don't have to pay the entire $30,000.

Shady point #4:   Instead of paying the bail, many people just stay in jail (bail bond companies may reject people, they many not be able to pay the premium, etc).  For such people, the county may allow them to exit jail on the condition that authorities can monitor them before the trial date (through electronic ankle bands, etc).  The program, called "pretrial services" helped Broward county save millions of dollars.  But wide spread of pretrial services would mean less profit for the bail bond industry, so they ruthlessly lobbied the local governments to cut funding for pretrial services.  It worked.

Skim through the article, and pay attention to all the commercials as well:

http://24hourbrowardbailbonds.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/just-say-no-to-pre-trial-services-in-broward-county/

Shady point #5:  Remember that shady contract I was talking about?  In order to apply for the bail bonds, you must sign a waiver that pretty much waives your rights as an American citizen, and it effectively makes the bounty hunter more powerful than police.  If you were to run away, bounty hunters can search your house without a warrant, go through your trash, use force to arrest you, not have to read your the Miranda rights, handcuff you, and so on.  How can this be legal?  You signed the paper!

Only four states have outlawed commercial bail bonds.  I think more states ought to do this.