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Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by philwelch on Monday March 04, 2019 @05:12PM (#19306111)
If I'm a bail bondsman, I'm probably already sending text messages to my clients to make sure they show up in court, because if they don't, I'm the one out the money unless I go pick them up and take them to the county jail myself. I'm not sure about ankle bracelets, but there's no reason they couldn't be part of the current bail system, either--if I'm a bail bondsman, I'd give a discount to any client that wears an ankle bracelet that I can track.

The thing is, there's only one county court. If the county court has a program of ankle bracelets and text messages and supervised release and that program doesn't work, there's no incentive for it to change. And there's no alternative for the suspect, either--the judge has final say. With cash bail, there might be a dozen bail bondsmen in the county all in competition, each with the incentive to provide competitive terms to the suspect while guaranteeing their presence at court.

Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by mikeash on Monday March 04, 2019 @06:50PM (#19306861)
How much competition is there going to be the bail bondsman for the homeless guy who gets picked up for vagrancy, or a poor person working paycheck to paycheck who already owes his soul to the local payday lenders?

Your proposal sounds like a great way to get excellent bail services for people who have money, but that’s not how the courts are supposed to work.

Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by philwelch on Monday March 04, 2019 @09:17PM (#19307580)
I'm not opposed to judges from releasing people of their own recognizance or under a different form of community supervision if that would be appropriate in that particular situation.
Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by crankylinuxuser on Monday March 04, 2019 @07:09PM (#19306968)
> Your proposal sounds like a great way to get excellent bail services for people who have money, but that’s not how the courts are supposed to work.

Sure about that? The way this country is heading is "One dollar = One vote". And once a sector gets accustomed to a stream of cash, there's no way to stop that flow of money.. No matter how dirty that money is.

Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by mikeash on Monday March 04, 2019 @07:17PM (#19307015)
I am sure that’s not how they’re supposed to work. How they actually work is another matter.
Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by perfmode on Monday March 04, 2019 @08:25PM (#19307352)
Are you being descriptive or normative?
Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by crankylinuxuser on Monday March 04, 2019 @09:05PM (#19307526)
I'm afraid I don't understand.
Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by taejo on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @05:46AM (#19309667)
Are you describing the world as you see it (that's descriptive; obviously you are, not sure why GP is asking) or as you think it should be (that's normative).
Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by Hello71 on Monday March 04, 2019 @05:54PM (#19306492)
I don't think private bondsmen in the US can legally contract to require people to wear ankle bracelets.

More fundamentally though, these sorts of "free market" theories tend to assume an unreasonable amount of options and knowledge of potential clients. See: payday loans. Sure, in theory all the details of the loans are pre-agreed, and customers sure do have a lot of options. In practice, the most ethical providers tend not to be the most successful.

Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by scottlocklin on Monday March 04, 2019 @06:18PM (#19306649)
I bet they have apps they could require people to stick in their phone which do the same thing.

If not, and you feel like contributing to the dystopian hellscape we live in: business oppos!

Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by simonh on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @06:30AM (#19309818)
Phone aren't always on, aren't always in coverage and the app would have to be actually active when the phone is switched on anyway. How do you think it would work?
Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by scottlocklin on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @12:54PM (#19312481)
It would be a reminder app, and otherwise work exactly the same way as those creepy "spouse tracking apps" people use to catch cheating housewives.
Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by fgonzag on Monday March 04, 2019 @06:50PM (#19306863)
Unless you plan on surgically implanting the phone, I don't think that's a bulletproof plan
Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by scottlocklin on Monday March 04, 2019 @06:54PM (#19306885)
I dunno have you seen human beings lately? Most people seem to be surgically attached to their nerd dild^H^H^H phones. Assuming the bailee is a rational and well intentioned actor (the article does seem to imply many people miss court because they forget), this is probably a reasonable thing to do.
Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by philwelch on Monday March 04, 2019 @08:39PM (#19307409)
> I don't think private bondsmen in the US can legally contract to require people to wear ankle bracelets.

Well, that's something to think about, then. It wouldn't even necessarily just have to be between the suspect and the bondsman; you might also allow judges to allow bail contingent on the suspect wearing a locating device.

Re:Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years by pjc50 on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @01:59AM (#19308622)
This is the fully privatized "justice" system that Neal Stephenson parodied in Snow Crash.

Private bail bonds are an almost uniquely US phenomenon. Most other countries either go harsher and keep everyone awaiting trial in jail, or more humane and allow bail on conditions not money. Only America sees it as an opportunity for economic exploitation.

The best way to wither the system would be to speed up court proceedings.