> Today, three out of five people in U.S. jails have not been convicted of a crime.

While its not perfectly divided this way, it's worth noting that the US has different things called “jails” and “prisons” and that the former are mostly for pretrial and short-sentence incarceration and mostly run by local governments, while the latter in state systems are almost exclusively for post-conviction felony sentences, while they are used for all purposes in the federal system.

This is important, because while the number of pre-trial confinements in the US is way too high, if you fail to understand that distinction statistics about the proportion of jail inmates that are on pre-trial confinement may be grossly misleading.

There is a graphic overview of the whole detention picture here: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html

OK, but you can't really argue your way around:

> This amounts to nearly half a million people sitting in jail each day, despite being presumed innocent under the law

> This amounts to nearly half a million people sitting in jail each day, despite being presumed innocent under the law

Ok, but it's not the same half million on any given day. A huge number of those people got picked up the night before and will be out (on bail or otherwise) by the end of the business day. Incarcerating people is expensive. Even if getting them out doesn't involve the state getting an interest free loan the state still has an incentive to get them out.

In functional jurisdictions the turnover is high. I know that there's a litany of exceptions for the authoritarian (and therefore more inclined to lock people up for no good reason) and well moneyed (and have the money to do it) jurisdictions in the Boston-DC corridor (and please nobody construe this as me giving the Southeast or west coast a pass, they suck too but do it differently) but the underlying problem there is societal. If you reform bail the well moneyed authoritarian jurisdictions are still well moneyed and still authoritarians and will simply spend that money using the system to screw people some other way.

>A huge number of those people got picked up the night before and will be out (on bail or otherwise) by the end of the business day.

Interesting. I'm curious to see the statistics you are pulling. Do you mind sharing a link?

That's more than one in a thousand people. Is that reasonable? It seems rather high to me. Is it a consequence of the judicial system or of high levels of crime, or what?

And how does it compare with other countries? Can anyone provide statistics and plausible explanations?

If you take a drunk driver to jail to wait out the night.. or a teen caught in a liquor store with a broken window at 3am... Or you pick up a domestic abuser and take them to jail to get them away from their victim while collecting evidence and statements...

Those are all people that are presumed innocent under the law... They may spend only minutes or hours in jail as police gather and verify their information... Run their prints to see if their given name is false and their a criminal with a warrant for their arrest... Etc....

So the commenter saying the stats might be misleading is very accurate ... Jails have revolving doors, and that's probably a good thing. It would also be a good thing to eliminate cash bond, without changing jails otherwise -- because jails serve a very real and practical benefit to society for less-than-a-day holding off individuals while their identity is verified and their information/case is reviewed to determine if a bond of any kind will be even offered.

Well we are given the statistic that half a million people are in jail each day. The US population is about 330 million, so if what you are saying is accurate, the mean person can expect to go to jail once every 660 days.

Does that sound reasonable?

If that seems like an unreasonable proportion of your time to be spending in jail, it's probably also an unreasonable proportion of the population to be keeping in jail.

>Those are all people that are presumed innocent under the law... They may spend only minutes or hours in jail as police gather and verify their information... Run their prints to see if their given name is false and their a criminal with a warrant for their arrest... Etc....

They may. But we're talking about those in pretrial detention, which excludes all the folks you're talking about. And the average length of pretrial detention is 50-200 days.

Would you be able to keep your job, pay your rent/mortgage and care for your children if you were sitting in jail for 3-6 months?

I'm rather OK with that.

Why?

I only skimmed that page you linked, because I was looking for the bit that mentions that people can spend years in jail awaiting trial. We’ve had more than a few stories of this happening at Rikers island, only for charges to be dropped altogether.

Cash bail and pretrial jail time exist to force quick plea bargains and criminal records on poor people. There’s not really justification for it. If you aren’t suspected of a serious violent crime or other crimes against people (rather than property), you shouldn’t be in jail.

> Cash bail and pretrial jail time exist to force quick plea bargains and criminal records on poor people. There’s not really justification for it. If you aren’t suspected of a serious violent crime or other crimes against people (rather than property), you shouldn’t be in jail.

This sounds fine in theory but in practice it leads to repeated infractions just shy of the incarceration limit.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-prop-47-shoplifting-th...

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-subway-men...

Neither of your sources (even if they were systematic rather than essentially anecdotal) identify anything like the cause you've posited (one is a post hoc ergo propter hoc with a change in post-conviction punishment, the other links no cause or even preceding change, neither indicates anything relating to pre-trial detention policy even viewed in the most favorable light.)

Jail or prison, either way you have list your liberty.

Pro side: I don't see anything wrong with requiring a surety to ensure that people awaiting trial don't flee, in principle.

It makes sure people are less likely to run away while at the same time doesnt force them to sit in jail while they await trial.

It should be relative to your ability to pay, and the commercial bondsman industry seems messed up, but those are implementation details and not the core of the system.

*as an interesting note, in Canada its illegal to be a commercial bondsmand - https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-139.ht... i think that helps make the bail system be much more sane.

Western Europe doesn't have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don't run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your current life (house, possessions, career, friends, family, etc) is over. People who actually are flight risks (due to the nature of the crime, extensive assets out-of-country, etc) can be held in jail pending trial, but that's pretty rare.

OR consider it this way: How much effort goes into making someone disappear into the witness relocation program? Now consider how much bigger and organized the US government is compared to some drug cartel? The amount of preparation and execution required to evade the US government for any length of time is immense, and beyond the means of almost everybody.

In Germany for example, you get a court summons, and if convicted, you get a prison summons with about a month to tie up your affairs. None of this medieval hauling people away in chains BS.

Bail might have made sense in the Wild West, when you could just run a few states over with your stuff and start over under a new name, but nowadays a fugitive life cuts you off from everything. And if someone is crazy enough to go that far, a bail bond won't make a lick of difference.

I mostly find your argument convincing, but keep in mind that there is no unitary "US government": most charges are under state law. This means that although the national government can know where you are down to the apartment number, you can be (legally) completely unreachable to the state that has ordered you to trial. The solution may be to just lock up the accused more liberally than in Europe, but I'm curious how Europe handles this problem in the Shengen zone.

You just extradite them, same as the American states do when someone flees to a different state.

I've yet to hear of someone being "untouchable" in another Shengen country. Are American state criminal laws that incompatible with each other?

Since you are the second poster to spell it wrong: It's Schengen.

The European Arrest Warrant sorts a lot of it out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant

The people who will skip trial and go underground are the reason this system exists. These aren’t professionals with mortgages.

> These aren’t professionals with mortgages.

Really? What kind of people are they?

The kind who can't/won't make a living within the bounds of the law. I've known a few characters personally who have been in and out of jail, and they did not have mortgages or steady jobs that gave them skin in the game of Good Behaviour.

None of them were flight risks though.

If they're not flight risks and are not able to permanently disappear from the justice system's reach, then they're not the reason the bail system exists.

The main problem isn’t flight or cinemaesque disappearing, it’s simply avoiding arrest and being out in the community reoffending. If you’re busted for dealing meth and get released pending trial and then don’t show you’re probably just out there selling meth again, crashing at a buddy’s place and avoiding getting pulled over.

In Europe, the small minority deemed likely to reoffend are simply kept in jail pending trial. Are you saying that people likely to reoffend should not be allowed to do so unless they can afford the cash bail (which will be reimbursed once they show up to trial)?

Wasn't the purpose of bail an incentive to ensure people show up to their trial? How would expanding the scope of bail's purpose to "keeping people from reoffending" work?

How do they determine “likely to offend”. In use such a vague thing can easily boil down to “while people are less likely to offend than black people”. So those who could get out by paying bail now are eternally stuck.

Just being arrested for something doesn't make someone guilty of an offence. The for a trial is to determine whether the accused is guilty of an offence and whether or not they should be removed from the community to prevent them from re-offending.

In any case, drug dealers are more likely to have the cash to pay their bail and get back out on the street than the regular working poor.

Drug dealers are not rich or even middle class. That’s more Hollywood nonsense.

Western Europe barely works.

Bringing one data point: my ex landlord wasn't really the owner of the house and was scamming rich landlords who had too many properties to control them properly. He also scammed tenants (eg. Not returning deposits).

The London metropolitan police jailed him, plenty of evidence and testimonies. He was released nonetheless, he escaped to Dubai (where he has family), he came back to the UK and opened another real estate company doing the same scam under another name. I fished him using LinkedIn and checking his old LinkedIn contacts.

Metropolitan police was aware of everything as I was in touch with a detective. He had the entire story, the new office location of the scammer, the website and photos showing the entire scam repeating itself and dropped the case.

The police has zero incentive to do anything about criminals, they just get more funding the worse criminality gets. A bail system is not perfect, but prevents people escaping, or at least collect some money from people who want to escape law.

This could be used to compensate victims, but I don't have high hopes for the government ever doing that.

If we want to prevent innocents ending up in jail we could just make victimless crimes legal. Weirdly enough, nobody seems to get behind that.

The lack of prosecution has more to do with priority than lack of bail.

Scams can be hard to prosecute, and the harm inflicted on victims is mostly financial. Personally, I would love to see more internet scammers (spammers in particular) prosecuted, but if I think hard about I can recognize that there might be crimes it more important to investigate.

Money is how people buy food. You need a super strong social safety net to say people don't deserve to buy their own food.

Didn't say it shouldn't be prosecuted.

Just that I understand that violent crime often takes priority.

The goal is to let some guilty walk free so that innocent are not troubled. There are people who know the weak points of the system, sometimes they will escape, but its worse to have someone innocent of a crime in prison.

> but prevents people escaping

prevents poor people escaping.

FTFY. So it's not going to solve this problem - your guy would just pay his bail and be gone.

So because the London police aren't willing to invest time and effort into a crime that you feel strongly about, Western Europe barely works?

You provided one example. I'm going to guess this person could have just posted bail and ran regardless. Bail isn't foolproof, and if you have enough money, you can get out of it. Heck, simply having money makes your odds of getting found 'not guilty' much greater in the US.

The problem is that bail really doesn't work better than a lot of other sorts of interventions. Know what has a good track record? Letting folks go and having them check in regularly. Calling them to remind them of appointments and court dates. And this has the added benefit of not ruining innocent people's lives and it is a better use of taxpayer money.

Not forcing ruin on folks really does help society at large.

Making victimless crimes legal wouldn't help with keeping innocent folks out of jail. Everyone in jail before trial is innocent. It doesn't matter what they are charged with - before trial, they are innocent. Even if the crime committed had a victim.

Except that even studies by the US Department of Justice show that risk of financial loss has one of the lowest impacts on likely to appear in court. This is also not recent discovery, this was heavily researched in the 70s.

Ironically just releasing people as soon as possible actually has one of the largest impacts on making sure people show.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/32349NCJRS.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=5374...

Is it about risk of financial loss or about setting up a financial incentive for a third-party to bring the person in?

There's minimal third party incentive.

I can imagine that after fighting to escape a brazenly unfair, discriminatory, hateful, pre-trial detention, I wouldn't be inclined to go roll those dice again for trial. Well, I would because I'm rich and look upper class.

I don't know. I think it is much better that a few folks don't show up to trial than to criminalize being poor. If I remember correctly, we can reduce folks not showing up by simple measures, like calling to remind folks of trial dates and making sure folks have transportation to get to trial. Why the heck would we put low-and-medium risk folks in jail, to be put in a position to lose their job, house, and freaking children, when we can do these other things that don't criminalize poverty while having less disruption of life?

If folks are found not guilty after spending weeks or months in jail (while being low to medium risk of fleeing), shouldn't we then shoulder the responsibility of fixing the life we've left in shambles? Especially since there was, indeed, other options we could have taken? We don't: At least in Indiana, even if you are found not guilty, you have administrative costs taken out of the bail amount you got back. And that's if you were lucky enough not to be forced to use a bondsman - then you won't get anything back (Yes, folks are court-ordered to use bondsman).

I don't think we should be asking for a surety for low risk at all, and medium risk is iffy - and this is just for felonies. I don't see a good reason to hold anyone for a misdemeanor.

I'm not certain that removing bondsman would make the US system more sane, though it does mean that you aren't charging an actual fee to get out, but instead returning (most of) bail if found not guilty.

Bail system is indeed inhuman. In the country I am from this does not exists. You could be jailed until court when there is high risk that you will continue to commit crimes or when you would hurt the investigation. No amount of money could reduce these risks. When you are found not guilty then there is a compensation for days spent in jail.

> shouldn't we then shoulder the responsibility of fixing the life we've left in shambles?

Especially if the charges are just dropped. That's got to be sooo hard - your life is a complete mess, everything you worked for is destroyed, because of... what? Some bureacratic mistake? A cop who wanted to get into the warm to do some paperwork? An overzealous politician wanting to "get tough on crime"?

I wonder if the system would change if the state had to pay people waiting for a trial their normal salary while they waited? So at least they could keep up with rent/mortgages and other payments while they waited.

What does forced to use a bondsman mean? Just that you can’t post your own bond from your pocket (which some jurisdictions allow, but how often does one have a bail amount of money in their pocket)?

I bonded someone out a few decades ago and instantly became a bondsman by so doing. (I have no other connection to the industry before or, thankfully, since.)

Based on the stream of paperwork I received threatening me with loss of bond money I posted, I’m not sure he ever returned to take care of the matter.

That is exactly what it means: Sometimes, the courts won't allow you to just post bail, but force you to pay a bondsman. There is no choice. (My brother had this stipulation when he was 17).

And it isn't that you can pay for them out of your pocked. You would have had to go to a business, pay them, and they pay the courts.

The specific question is “can you be his bondsman as I was for my colleague?”

No.

You'd have to go to a 3rd party that is licensed by the state. You can usually find the businesses around courthouses or jails. They are often open 24 hours a day and fairly brightly lit.

Ah. There were a half-dozen of those on the way to the jail. I seem to recall my colleague had a choice of posting $300 with a commercial bond agent who would then post the $2500 with the court or anyone could post the whole $2500 in cash at the jail directly. (Was in Florida in Feb 1997.)

And in some cases, that is allowed, but not always.

I'm to the point I think it is all a scam, and I'm ashamed we've let it get to this point.

Bail bonds fees are about 10% of bail bonds. You don't get any of your bond fee back because you got a 90% discount on bail. It's essentially a payday loan, with all the pros and cons.

Yeah. I might not have as much issue with it, but the courts sometimes order you to use one. It is essentially a tax on being arrested at that point.

You can get forced to use one, have your charges dropped or found not guilty, and then not get your fees. Then again, you'll have administrative fees taken out even if you pay out of pocket.

>I think it is much better that a few folks don't show up to trial than to criminalize being poor.

>Why the heck would we put low-and-medium risk folks in jail, to be put in a position to lose their job, house, and freaking children, when we can do these other things that don't criminalize poverty while having less disruption of life?

Keep in mind, it isn't easy to suddenly and accidentally get thrown in jail. If the violation is minor and non-violent, then by the time it gets to that point, the person will have had many chances to straighten up (more often than not) and simply chose to ignore the warnings.

But it is easy to get thrown in jail. This is especially true if your skin isn't white enough: How many stories do you hear of folks being in jail for having the description, "Tall black male?".

You act like everyone can avoid all things: Have you never met anyone put in jail for not paying child support when they don't have a job... in part, because they were put in jail for not paying child support?

Or... you can live in a weed-friendly state and forget you have some in your car while traveling. Jail for drugs now. Heck, you can be jailed for being in a house with drugs, even if you weren't doing drugs yourself. "Visiting a common nuisance" is a thing they charge folks with [1]. I don't think it is as common now, but at one time, it wasn't uncommon to get arrested while walking home drunk for public intoxication, even though driving would have been criminal. Indiana cops used to wait outside bars to arrest folks for this. While it might be prohibited now, this ruined lives and stuff like this still happens.

You don't have, "many chances". You just get caught or you don't, and you can get caught your first time. It happens. For some things, simply living in public housing increases your chances because of heavy police presence that isn't there for nicer neighborhoods: Sometimes nicer neighborhoods have conditions that make getting caught less because you are smoking weed in a spacious backyard rather than on a balcony where others can see and smell.

[1]https://www.in.gov/meth/files/Visiting_or_Maintaining_a_Comm...

>But it is easy to get thrown in jail. This is especially true if your skin isn't white enough: How many stories do you hear of folks being in jail for having the description, "Tall black male?".

I'm sorry to break your narrative, but this is NOT true in my experience at all. 99.999999% of the time, if you end up in jail, you knowingly engaged in questionable activity or associated yourself with criminal deviants. Doesn't matter what your skin color is despite the imbalanced frequency of reporting in the US.

Everyone arrested is innocent. You seem to forget that.

Maybe you just don't have much experience, or don't realize the vague descriptions police will use to bring folks in. Systematic racism makes this more likely if you aren't white. Systematic racism is a big issue.

You can be arrested for being homeless or stealing food if you are starving (not everywhere has available shelters nor food pantries to go to, nor do shelters provide safe places for a family). I don't think this is being deviant. They'll sure charge you bail, though. And again, sometimes it is just a mistake. Live in a legal state and forget to take those joints out of the care before going to an illegal state? Well, now you have a drug charge. You can't teach nor be a pharmacist now.

People get arrested for "drugs" that aren't all the time (leaves, candy, etc), but I'm guessing you haven't spent much time around the sort of person that gets stopped for this sort of thing (generally, just young and alternative-looking with a crappier-than-average car). Some of them go to jail waiting on the stuff to be tested.

Your experience isn't broad enough. Just because you haven't seen these things in your corner of the world doesn't mean it is false.

>Maybe you just don't have much experience, or don't realize the vague descriptions police will use to bring folks in

>but I'm guessing you haven't spent much time around the sort of person that gets stopped for this sort of thing

>Your experience isn't broad enough

This is awfully presumptuous.

>Live in a legal state and forget to take those joints out of the care before going to an illegal state?

It is common knowledge that marijuana is not legal everywhere and there are a lot of restrictions. Honestly, "forgeting" your drugs in your car deserves a drug charge if you transport it somewhere illegal. People should be expected to maintain a minimum degree of personal responsibility in a civilized society. This includes following basic rules.

I can't speak on the experiences of the homeless.

Yeah, presumptuous, but based off of the words you chose to type - and continue to type.

Often, I find that discussion of "personal responsibility" often comes without a minimum of empathy or understanding. It is really easy to become comfortable with some things you buy regularly to be in your car, and really easy to forget that it is in your car. People forget things all the time. This is a common human error, and penalizing folks for life for a simple error seems harsh.

And sure, you can't speak on being homeless, but you can read about it and emphasize, at least. If anything, you can pretend you are planning on being homeless. Most of the stuff written won't enlighten you on being in a big city, and are written by folks that managed to come out the other side. Like this. http://guide2homelessness.blogspot.com/2004/10/introduction-...

Do you work at a jail? You must have lots of firsthand experience if you can calculate that frequency with precision to the millionths.

"99.9999999%" means "almost always". It isn't a precise calculation, which you know. Just look at the US arrest statistics. See how many total arrests there are annually and ask yourself how many of those could be for "no good reason". Even if it's a high percentage like 10%, it is still very unlikely to occur to the average person.

> it isn't easy to suddenly and accidentally get thrown in jail.

No one accidentally gets thrown in jail, its always an intentional act by another person.

And it is very easy to suddenly get thrown in jail, particularly if you are poor and/or non-white.

> If the violation is minor and non-violent, then by the time it gets to that point, the person will have had many chances to straighten up (more often than not) and simply chose to ignore the warnings.

That's...very much not true. It might be true if you are referring to post-conviction incarceration, it is very much not true when talking about pre-trial confinement as a means of ensuring appearance. Plenty of minor and non-violent offenses are arrestable, rather than merely citable, even if the accused has no prior record.

>No one accidentally gets thrown in jail,

Just as no one accidentally falls on a crucifix in the shower.

https://worldnewsdailyreport.com/catholic-priest-hospitalize...

This is clearly not a universal truth in the US justice system. It can be very, very simple to be suddenly and through no criminal fault of a defendant’s own that they end up in jail. [1]

1 - source is myself, my clients, and my jurisdiction’s arrest statistics, along with many,many media reports hat prove your point not true.

There seems to be a lot of confusion over this. I suppose because many people here don’t have direct experience. I’m wondering if there’s a good public source for arrest statistics and records that would go into more detail.

I would seriously doubt a good source exists. In fact, I am as certain as a single person in a single jurisdiction can be, that the records required to generate those statistics would require information unwillingly released from multiple governmental entities and that those entities would make it as hard as possible to generate meaningful data.

> Keep in mind, it isn't easy to suddenly and accidentally get thrown in jail.

Have you not paid attention to any protest in the US whatsoever in the past 10-15 years? It's VERY easy to get thrown in jail, even when judges have ruled mere months before that it's illegal for police to keep arresting protesters.

A ruling that you can’t be arrested for protesting does not mean you can’t be arrested while protesting.

Batter a cop? You’re probably going for a ride even if you were at a protest, which seems fairly reasonable.

We have plenty of examples of peaceful people being arrested, though. Including journalists. All you really have to do is be there, and then you can be taken in with a slew of excuses.

What solution would you propose? That protests are 100% ironclad arrest-free zones? That seems...unworkable.

There is more than one way to handle protests. You can stand by and observe, only really going in when something is amiss... or show up in riot gear as your first option. The second choice has been the choice with BLM protests - but is rarely the choice with, say, anti-abortion activists. And you know, I don't get it: If an African-American man can keep his cool while having to police an KKK march, why can't cops in general keep their cool with these?

Part of the issue is that folks are protesting the police themselves - namely, the systematic and blatant racism and police violence. The prudent measure, minimally, would be to have a background presence since they've not actually jumped on the chance to make real change. The Rodney King riots happened in 1992: We've had decades to try to change the face of policing. If anything, perhaps we should have started real change after any one of the incidences. Changed police immunity. Required more training. Try to reduce officer stress and weed out folks that were racist. Abolish police gangs. But that's much harder, and won't stop a protest while it is happening.

But it would actually stop them.

I would rather see 10 guilty people flee before their trial and escape justice, than see one innocent person get stuck in jail pre-trial because they couldn't cough up the cash for a bail bond, causing them to lose their job and ruin their life.

Means testing flat-out doesn't work. There are plenty of people who get caught in the system who can afford exactly zero dollars for bail, and I find it damn near impossible that any system set up to make this "fair" would ever allow for the possibility that they need to let a person go with no bail paid at all.

> This is why poor black neighborhoods are crime ridden and victimized.

Are you claiming this is unique to black neighborhoods? Why would there be a racial component to this issue at all?

> Your own efforts to believe in racial justice by any means undermine the outcome itself.

You appear to be the first person in this thread to invoke race.

You posted several flamewar comments in this thread and unfortunately have a significant history of posting race flamebait to HN. We ban such accounts, so please stop that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You've also been using HN primarily for political battle for quite some time. That's against the rules here, and we ban such accounts—we have to, or else political flames will take over this place completely. If you want more explanation about that, see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... Either way, please stop doing this on HN.

It's not that we don't want to talk about race, it's that we don't want to talk with a racist.

Arent people often let go without having to pay bail? At least i think that's how it works in canada (where im from) if they dont think its likely you will try to run and its not a particularly serious offence

If the downsides weren't so significant, then sure, the pro side makes sense.

But the downsides are incredibly significant - that you have huge numbers of people who spend time in jail or spend money for a bail bond, who are indeed innocent, is a sign of a fundamentally broken system.

> It should be relative to your ability to pay

Sure, this would help, but I suspect it would still end up often unjustly impacting those who are poorer and innocent.

If people don't show up for trial, charge them for that then.

But pre trial, while presumed innocent, aside from unique high flight risk scenarios? The bail system is terrible, and fundamentally unfair.

Edit: to be clear, making it relative to ability to pay, and eliminating commercial bail bondsmen would be a big step in the right direction. I still think that's rife with issues, but it would be significantly better than what we have now.

Fundamentally the idea of a surety doesn't work for the really poor. If you don't have anything to put up as collateral, you don't have anything to loose by skipping bail.

The flip side of that, is if you are really poor you have less resources to use making your escape, so maybe the bail system is less needed.

But just because the bail system doesn't work well for poor people doesn't mean its also broken for middle class people.

> If you don't have anything to put up as collateral, you don't have anything to loose by skipping bail.

That doesn't seem correct. Wouldn't that really only be the case for guilty people, whereas innocent people would turn up in order to be proven innocent - assuming (perhaps wrongly) that they'd win?

I don't think poor people in the US would assume they win. And that is one major factor: when there is little to nothing to gain by staying Wwithin the system, but a lot to lose, why would you stay?

Another issue is that showing up isn't free. At the very least, it costs time. Remark that defendants typically aren't compensated, even if acquitted. If you're poor, you might not be able to afford to attend.

> you don't have anything to put up as collateral, you don't have anything to loose by skipping bail.

This right here is the problem. Addressing this would probably solve the bail issue too.

The question should perhaps be: is America ready to do what it takes to address poverty?

You could reduce some of the downsides by reducing the amount required for bail by day and by adding limits for how long someone could be required to stay.

Also an automated system to calculate bail and maximum duration (as in not the judge deciding) might reduce some bias, so some categories of potential crimes don’t end up in jail while awaiting trial unless it’s a repeated offense.

Another approach could be to account for the pre trial days more favorably for the defendant: x days pre trial count for 2x days if convicted or need to get reimbursed at the higher of minimum rate or more than the loss of income. This approach would require a way to make sure judges don’t collude though.

> You could reduce some of the downsides by reducing the amount required for bail by day and by adding limits for how long someone could be required to stay

Either the amount is sufficient to prevent the accused from hopping on a plane to Bali, or it isn't. If a lesser amount would have sufficied than that should have been the amount in the first place.

Bail isn't meant as a punishment, its meant as a way to ensure you don't leave town. If you could just wait it out, everyone who wanted to run would just wait it out, and you would end up bssically creating a system that just hinders "good" people while not serving its purpose of preventing people from skipping out.

I honestly don't really see the pro side.

Assuming the accused is guilty and financially well able to pay for bail, this sounds like a pretty good deal to me to just drop some cash, write it off, and be able to leave and never show up for trial.

Assuming the accused is innocent and financially unable to pay for bail, they'll end up in jail without ever having committed a crime.

Like so much else in the US, it's showing heavy signs of a plutocraty, where money even decides if you'll be subject to the judiciary system or not. In almost any sane judiciary system I know there will be a pre-trial hearing to determine the likeliness of the suspect fleeing or obfuscating evidence, and only if this risk is arguably given, only then the suspect would be put in investigative custody (and that time served will be either counted towards the sentence, if guilty, or damages repayed to the suspect if proven innocent)

It's not like you can forfeit the bail, skip the trial and then just walk away scot-free. There's now a warrant out for your arrest and an additional charge, and you've torpedoed pretty much any chance of leniency.

If it's a serious enough crime, they will come looking for you, and you will not be offered bail a second time. If it wasn't too serious, they might not come looking for you, but you'll have an active warrant so any traffic stop, background check, etc is going to be a huge problem for you. Arguably a worse punishment than whatever you would have gotten if you just showed up at trial.

Maybe if you're planning to never visit that state again or if you're leaving the country entirely and never want to return it might work out, but generally committing additional crimes after you've already been caught for one crime isn't a good idea.

"leniency" is mostly a myth though, and affected people know it. Leniency is probation which is an expensive trap to haul you back in on nonsense reasons like missing a bus or talking to your cousin who has a criminal record.

of course, but how does this stop anyone from _fleeing_ once bail is made or from obfuscating evidence whilst awaiting trial?

All those things I said stop them from fleeing? I'm not sure I understand the question. Yes, you can flee, but you're going to spend the rest of your life as a wanted criminal. It's not exactly easy.

Letting people go home without bail would include the same risk of fleeing, without the additional financial incentive. So, if the concern is people skipping trial, how does that help?

Not a lawyer, but I believe police are supposed to collect evidence before they make an arrest, to provide justification for the arrest. If there are places they still need to search, they can probably lock them off, but I think most of the evidence should already be in police custody.

>All those things I said stop them from fleeing? I'm not sure I understand the question. Yes, you can flee, but you're going to spend the rest of your life as a wanted criminal. It's not exactly easy.

But, this is true with or without bail.

Right, I'm not arguing for or against bail. The comment I was originally replying to seemed to imply that bail creates a system where rich people can just commit all the crimes they want, forfeit the bail, and then go on with their lives like nothing happened. I'm just saying that's not at all the case. Just because you've paid the bail doesn't mean you're free to go and you won't suffer any consequences for the crime.

> Assuming the accused is guilty and financially well able to pay for bail, this sounds like a pretty good deal to me to just drop some cash, write it off, and be able to leave and never show up for trial.

I don't support cash bail, personally, but it's worth noting that some amount of the bail money can be converted to a bounty for the apprehension of those of the accused who go on to skip trial.

From a non-US person, the whole Bounty system, now that is where things truly hit the Blade-Runner-esque dystopia level.

3rd party bounty hunters are a pretty rare thing. Most of the time it's the same bail bondsman who facilitates a suspects release that comes looking, since the bondsman doesn't get their money back from the court until the suspect shows.

Which is the whole point.

And that bondsman likely required the suspect to list and confirm the name, address, and phone number of every family member, employer, and close contact they have.

Probably 95% of cases are the bondsman just calling the suspect's family to get them to encourage compliance.

An angry moma is going to be more effective than any manhunt.

Not really, it’s not as if it’s an old west wanted dead or alive thing. It’s actually pretty mundane. They even made a crappy reality TV show about it.

> it's worth noting that some amount of the bail money can be converted to a bounty for the apprehension of those of the accused who go on to skip trial.

Hahaha, bounty hunting certainly makes for good movie scripts, but in practice I imagine that it's quite a bad idea.

Leave law enforcement to the police, they are already bad enough at it -- I can't imagine you want poorly trained civilians without uniform to employ violence to apprehend suspects.

What happens when a bounty hunter mistakes the identify of someone who then decides to exercise self-defense against a kidnapping attempt?

The fact that this doesn't constantly cause massive problems in a country full of guns and "stand your ground laws" is amazing :D

which might also work without bail, as incarcerating the accused would cost tax money anyway - so it doesn't work too well just as an incentive for showing up, but also doesn't hinder the accused from fleeing or destroying evidence once they do pay bail.

Using private companies for law enforcement purposes, as opposed to using accountable public employees, seems like a completely unnecessary idea. It does create a powerful lobbying industry, which makes it even harder to reform.

The unstated "pro side" is simply being mean to and destroying the lives of entire classes of people you hate.

How do you reconcile this with the presumption of innocence? Is it ok to make an innocent person pay a burdensome amount until they are exonerated?

In a vast majority of US jurisdictions, the presumption of innocence is a ‘right’ that only exists for the defendant’s lawyer to y’all about at trial. Almost all law enforcement interaction and pre-trial court proceeding operate under an inference of ‘named defendant is more likely guilty than not’.

I don’t like imprisoning people because just they are poor.

> Pro side: I don't see anything wrong with requiring a surety to ensure that people awaiting trial don't flee, in principle.

In the UK you get bail automatically unless you are a flight risk. The burden of proof is on the prosecution.

Why should the burden of proof not be reversed in the US? What good does it do to automatically assume that everyone is a flight risk, when we know that most people are not?

Because while you are technically innocent until proven guilty, society treats folks that are arrested as guilty unless proven innocent - and even then, if they were acting properly, they think they wouldn't have been arrested.

Example: a background check sometimes produces an arrest record (not a conviction), and that can cost a job. Background check companies don't have to be licensed, and no one keeps track.

But you are correct: The burden of proof should be reversed. We know most folks aren't a flight risk and gentle measures - such as having folks check in and calling folks to remind them of court dates - have good results.

>Pro side: I don't see anything wrong with requiring a surety to ensure that people awaiting trial don't flee, in principle.

And if you can't scrape together $500 or $1000 for bail, how far are you going to get if you try to run away?

It seems to me that those who can afford bail are much more likely to flee than those who can't.

> That is fucking crazy. That sounds like a Blade-Runner-esque dystopia. And it’s our reality.

From everything I read, it's rather scary to be poor in America, especially if you have to deal with the judicial or medical system.

> or medical system.

Poor people get medicaid, which is actually pretty decent insurance since it's private (non government) insurance, paid for by the government.

It's actually the middle class that has it hard: Too rich for medicaid, too poor to easily afford the deductibles.

(I know this is an unpopular opinion, but things were better before Obamacare - deductibles were much much lower.)

> Poor people get medicaid, which is actually pretty decent insurance since it's private (non government) insurance, paid for by the government.

Medicaid isn't consistently private insurance paid for by the government; though “managed risk” through outside (sometimes still publicly operated; several of them in California are county-run) plans is an increasingly popular model, though many states continue to have traditional fee-for-service model as well (California has a mix of managed care and fee-for-service.)

> (I know this is an unpopular opinion, but things were better before Obamacare - deductibles were much much lower.)

It's not the most popular opinion, by it remains extremely widespread, and lots of money, effort, and propaganda has expended to generate and maintain this opinion over the last decade.

Also, premiums and deductibles were often lower because the combination of lifetime limits, preexisting condition exclusions and the associated recission practice [0], and the cancel-and-refund practice [1], all of which the ACA banned, made it possible for insurance companies to collect premiums and then find an excuse to leave people who thought they were insured uninsured when they actually needed the insurance most.

[0] whereby insurance companies would investigate for anything they could characterize as evidence of an undisclosed preexistinf condition as a pretext for cancelling the policy once someone started to look like an expensive case.

[1] whereby, lacking even the pretext of an undisclosed preexisting condition, when someone looked to become too expensive, the insurance company would just cancel their policy and refund all past premiums (and eat the cost of any previous benefits received.)

> and lots of money, effort, and propaganda has expended

I don't know anything about propaganda, I just know that my insurance got way way way worse after ACA.

If you think every such report is propaganda you are not being honest with yourself.

> I don't know anything about propaganda, I just know that my insurance got way way way worse after ACA.

I suspect you know it got more expensive for the benefits from the perspective of someone not first starting to need it for something in the high tail of cost. The likelihood that you would get thrown off of your insurance in that case without effective remedy is something you probably haven't directly experienced, but it's a pretty significant factor in the quality of insurance, and is a very major cost drivers in the change from pre-ACA policy to the ACA.

(non american here) so what was the problem ACA was designed to solve? I assume there must have been another group of people who are not poor enough but not middle class enough? Or something else? I care about your unpopular opinion since the popular ones are easier to find

The ACA addressed numerous issues, some of the more notable ones:

(1) it included a very significant expansion of Medicaid eligibility.

(2) for people just outside of Medicaid eligibility, it includes public subsidies for exchange-listed plans.

(3) it banned a number of practices which made insurance either inaccessible or illusory, most notably preexisting condition exclusions (and the associated practice of looking for an indicator of preexisting condition and using it as pretext to cancel the policy when someone was diagnosed with an expensive-to-care-for condition), but also cancel-and-refund practices, and lifetime benefit limits.

It should also be noted that all efforts to repeal the ACA don't come with anything to deal with problem #3.

Not just deductibles, my self-insured premiums have almost tripled since ACA.

Deductibles have been going up since the invention of HMO's. The idea the rate of increase had increased under PPACA is nonsense. If you want to complain about PPACA, complain about it expanding a greedy for-profit pay per procedure and pillpopping regime that pretends to be a a product. That system should be destroyed. Is immoral and has low efficacy compared to all other industrialized and civilized alternatives, whether public, or hybrid.

> regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status?

Bail is in fact supposed to be a function of your financial status, and the severity of the crime.

What do you suggest as an alternative to bail bonds? Maybe ankle monitors for those awaiting trial?

I think maybe the thing that should most change is outlawing bail bondsmen. It seems like they distort the market for bail bonds significantly and may be causing some/most of the problems with bail, and at the same time this system empowers private individuals with duties that should be the responsibility of the state (finding and detaining people who didn't show up to court).

Outlawing bail bondsmen, who are a weird bit of private law enforcement that belong in Westerns and nowhere else, is step 1.

The UK system makes very little use of cash bail, recognising that it's pointless for petty crimes and dangerous for violent ones, but one of the most famous recent cases of a big bail bond was .. Julian Assange, who cost his supporters £93,000 by skipping bail. The process of skipping bail was a criminal offence for which he has been jailed. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/08/julian-assange...

>What do you suggest as an alternative to bail bonds? Maybe ankle monitors for those awaiting trial?

It's pretty obvious. Look at the severity of the crime. If it's severe enough detain them until trial. If not then release them. Why do you think the ability to release drug lords is a necessary feature of your justice system?

> What do you suggest as an alternative to bail bonds?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but cash bails are pretty rare globally, and the normal way of going about this is: if you are dangerous/risk interfering with the investigation/a flight risk (Meaning not just "not show up" but actually leave the country, such as foreign citizens), then you await trial in jail. If you are not, then you don't.

Putting people out on their own recognizance works in most cases. The rare exception of a serious flight risk simply doesn’t get bail anyway.

> Putting people out on their own recognizance works in most cases.

Has this been studied?

>> Putting people out on their own recognizance works in most cases.

>Has this been studied?

Actually, it has. In fact, the linked essay goes into some significant detail about it.

Perhaps you might consider reading it.

Do you mean this Arcdigital article posted to HN? If so, I can’t see any mention of it.

>Do you mean this Arcdigital article posted to HN? If so, I can’t see any mention of it.

Yes, I did. And to make sure we're talking about the same thing, the article is: https://arcdigital.media/abolish-the-cash-bail-system-3cf647...

Here's the section I mentioned:

"It is also questionable whether the cash bail system does a better job guaranteeing individuals will appear in court. Washington, D.C. was an early pioneer in pretrial reform, eliminating secured money bail and bolstering pretrial services in 1992. The results have been extraordinary. Today, it releases 94 percent of those accused for crimes as they await a court hearing, and 91 percent of them appear in court for their trial. New Jersey likewise passed a suite of criminal justice reforms in 2016 that essentially eliminated cash bail and created a new pretrial services program. A year after the reforms were implemented, 95 percent of defendants were released pretrial and 89 percent of them appeared at their trial dates. These rates of appearance for trial are similar to, or better than, the rates of appearance before the reforms were implemented. It would appear, then, that the cash bail system is not required to guarantee a high rate of court compliance nor does it do better than the alternatives."

And here are the links that were embedded in the section above supporting the author's assertions:

http://cjpp.law.harvard.edu/assets/BailReform_WEB.pdf

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/02/644085158/what-changed-after-...

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/rep...

https://www.njcourts.gov/courts/assets/criminal/2018cjrannua...

Thanks - either I'm going blind or I scrolled straight past that section on my phone (twice!).

Ankle monitors works for me, with cutting off the ankle monitor earning a one way ticket to remand. Seems like we have the technology to do away with cash bail.

When applied for house arrest, ankle monitors are pretty expensive, with the expense borne by the person being monitored https://www.propublica.org/article/digital-jail-how-electron...

Unless a different payment scheme were implemented for a cash bond alternative, poor defendants would still likely end up in jail due to inability to pay for their ankle monitors.

Ankle monitors should be a government expense, except intentional damage.

The entire US justice system is a dystopia to me.

As someone who grew up in Norway, if I somehow found myself on a US jury I'd be had pressed to be able to morally justify voting "guilty" even if the accused stood up in court and committed the crime in front of me, because of the inhumane prison system and length of sentences.

It's a system that is fundamentally about satisfying a desire for vengeance at all cost, not about making society better.

[I'll add to this that Norway had a pretty brutal prison system too, until a prison reform movement started gaining traction in the 60's. The interesting part is that as it turns out, treating people like humans instead of abusing them tends to reduce re-offending]

The conviction rate is very high, upwards of 85% in some states. So it's not like large swaths of completely innocent people are being held in jails. I'm okay with pre-trial incarceration as long as everyone gets treated equally.

Since they aren't, I think non-cash bail is a good idea, with strict requirements to check in with an officer, etc. If they don't meet their appointments or break the terms of their bail, I'm also okay to see them incarcerated pre-trial.

However, there needs to be some provision to make sure that they don't stay in jail longer than what their offense would have garnered. If someone is in jail pre-trial for half the median time an average punishment if they were found guilty, then the charges should be immediately dropped. This should give prosecutors more incentive to get their acts together and have a trial in a reasonable amount of time.

The conviction rate is because people are forced to plea out to avoid the stacked overcharging done by prosecutors. You either take the 1-5, or go to trial and risk 20 to Life. The conviction rate at the state level is most certainly not something to be proud of because of the way it's obtained

>...However, there needs to be some provision to make sure that they don't stay in jail longer than what their offense would have garnered.

Well, in the US Constitution, they talk about a "speedy trial". But since this is the US, the US Constitution doesn't have too much weight. Failure to waive your right to a speedy trial can result in your public defender getting beat down by the judge.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/1...

Funny story but the public defender jumped at the chance to "go out back and fight". And the judge got first sanctioned then lost his job.

And I rather doubt the 85 percent is dominated by innocent people accused of first degree murder pleading it down to 1-5.

I was being kind of sarcastic with the 1-5 -> 20+, but the point still stands, you can look at being home to see your child finish high school, or be a grandfather to a teenager when you are released.

I assumed your remark was serious and in my experience that is an accurate statement of how prosecutors work. In my jurisdiction until July of 2018, three burglary’s or three selling marijuana convictions could in fact result in a manditory life sentence and people will certainly take the 5 year sentence as opposed to risking the 20 years or possibly life.

Not an expert, but I imagine the conviction rate is high because prosecutors make it the path-of-least resistance to freedom. Competent legal assistance is expensive, and building a defense is also expensive and time-consuming. So I wouldn't say that an 85% conviction rate implies anything about the innocence of pre-trial prisoners. Moreover, I think it is dangerous to do so, lest it be a circular argument: why did you arrest him? He was guilty. Why was he guilty? Because I arrested him.

It would be interesting to see data on how many charges are dropped. You are correct that cases are submitted to the DA, they look at all the evidence and decide whether or not they will prosecute. A big part of that is "can I even get a conviction?"

So you'd expect a relatively high conviction rate just based on the fact that cases where conviction is unlikely are filtered out before they ever get to trial.

The data, as amazed by organizations like the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, tends to show that prosecutors accept upwards of 80% of charges submitted for prosecution by law enforcement and that grand jury’s will indict upwards of 95% of cases presented to them. [1] The common phrasing amongst lawyers is that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich and that a DA will accept as many charges at the highest level they can and that they’ll see what might stick later.

1 - Those grand jury numbers are why the Breonna Taylor non-indictment is so angering

Interesting. So using the rough numbers, an average of 68% of people (85% * 80%) arrested will agree to a plea agreement.

That is probably a fair assumption of the average on a national scale. I know in my jurisdiction it is somewhere near 88%.

As long as you remember "can I even get a conviction" does not mean, "do I even think the defendant is guilty".

It means just that - "can I even get a conviction".

>So you'd expect a relatively high conviction rate just based on the fact that cases where conviction is unlikely are filtered out before they ever get to trial.

Except non-prosecution is a tiny percentage of cases where no trial is held. Only 2% of Federal criminal cases actually go to trial[0], and 97% end with the defendant pleading to a lesser charge.

Overall, something like 90-95% of all criminal cases in the US end with a plea bargain[1]

Usually, the prosecutor uses the threat of jail or prison (for more minor offenses) or the threat of lengthy (15 years? Life?) for more serious ones to force a defendant to plead guilty to a lesser charge. And this is true even if the defendant is innocent of the crime charged.

And when someone is poor and can't afford bail, prosecutors can exert even more pressure to force a plea bargain[2], as the defendant (whether or not they actually committed a crime) will sit in jail either until they agree to plead guilty to something or go to trial.

How long would you keep your job if you were sitting in jail? How long before you couldn't pay your rent/mortgage without income from that job? Or even worse, if you're a single parent, how long could you retain custody of your children?

And it just gets worse. Should you plead guilty, you now have a criminal record and most employers won't hire you.

And remember, these are people who haven't been convicted of a crime, and no court or jury has heard their case. Yet many people's lives are ruined just because they're poor and can't afford to pay bail.

Edit: Fixed percentage of overall cases which end with a plea bargain.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/11/only-2-of-f...

[1] https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/media/docu... [PDF]

[2] https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/media/docu...

The US system is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. We should not be ok with denying a person’s freedom while they are presumed innocent. Additionally the conviction rate has nothing to do with actual guilt. Many people plea to get it over with.

I did this myself in the early 90s shortly after turning 18. I was charged with class 3 misdemeanor disorderly conduct for skateboarding. My lawyer thought we could beat it but I was poor and starting college hundreds of miles away. I was afraid of the disruption to my studies plus the costs of going to trial. It was easier to plea to a lesser charge (summary offense, like a traffic ticket) and move on.

This scenario plays out for many people and has little to do with actual guilt.

Conviction rate includes guilty verdicts as well as guilty and no contest pleas. Those pleas are heavily influenced by the use of cash bail as a pressure tactic to get plea acceptance. Something like 90% of cases don’t ever see a trial.

Your optimizing for a variable that doesn’t mean at all what you think it means

Ok, so let's assume that only those 15% are actually innocent. Is that a low number? If yes, then what if it was 20%? 25% when does it stop to be ok to ask innocent people to potentially lose their jobs, custody of their children etc or put themselves una debt spiral instead?

You're completely innocent until you've been proven guilty; before trial, the conviction rate is irrelevant to whether the person is innocent

> You're completely innocent until you've been proven guilty

Nitpick: you’re presumed innocent, which is very different from saying you’re actually introvert.

>Nitpick: you’re presumed innocent, which is very different from saying you’re actually introvert.

No. Actual introverts are always guilty. :)

> your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status?

Isn't bail adjusted based on the persons financial status?

Unlike road fines and the like, it's one of the few things that do take into account a persons wealth.

There are quite a few people who get caught in the system for whom any amount of bail would be an unreasonable financial hardship. Seems that if they really means-tested bail, they'd come up with "zero" for a lot people, and would likely just require they stay jailed pre-trial.

>Isn't bail adjusted based on the persons financial status?

Is it? I'm unaware of any evidence of that. If you could share some with me, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Almost every state has factors required By statute to be Considered when setting bail. One of those factors is, almost always, the financial ability of the defendant to give bond. Doesn’t mean it is factored appropriately, but the law states that it should matter.

> I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for.

There's a pretty good movie called Midnight Run that would need a new premise without cash bail. Other than that, yeah, no argument.

It cuts both ways though. The surety's financial resources are taken into account by the bail decision maker. If the accused does not have sufficient means, other conditions may be imposed. But if no other conditions are available, the bail decision maker may be obliged to refuse bail.

So if a guy murders your mom by burning her alive in her stolen car after savagely raping her, your number one concern is that he can see his family and live comfortably before his trial and sentencing? This kind of thinking is the dysfunction you should be worried about. Criminals good. Law enforcement bad. And before bemoaning the plight of some contrived story about a preferred category of citizen being arrested for drugs or whatever, everybody I know whose gone to jail (several) ALL of them did much, much more than they were arrested for. Some were friends. None of them were good people.

Judges aren’t robots, either. Bail is assessed by both means and severity of crime. If you’ve never been in a courtroom, you might not know this.

> It’s also one of those policies that I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for.

I have always assumed that the goal was to decrease flight risk for people (from the perspective of the court), thereby allowing larger swaths of people to be released pre-trial.

By not going out on bail, you get to reduce your sentence by 'time served' right?

That means, if you think there's a good chance you're going to be convicted, it might actually make more sense not to post bail. Then you'll end up released at an earlier date.

If you've already lost your job and can't afford rent anywhere, it might also make sense - getting a job and renting a place are hard to do, and to do all that only to later be convicted and sent to prison and end up defaulting on your rental contract and being declared bankrupt - might not be the best move for your post-prison prospects.

One of the only ‘pro’ arguments that can be made in a sensible manner is to discuss the amount of people not incarcerated who do not appear for court. It is not a great argument, but it is a factor to be considered.

In theory, bail, via a bondsman, is an amount of money that will Ensure that the bail-bondsman will go track down the defendant in the event they do not appear for court as required.

That said, I don’t think the argument is persuasive enough to result in the system in place in most US jurisdictions.

What?

It looks like your proposing someone pay someone else to do a particular role.

What does that have to do with cash bail?

I'm confused.

The point of bail is to put the defendant (or someone close to them) on the hook to pay the bail if the defendant doesn't show up in court.

Bail bondsmen offer a different deal: pay us a fee (smaller than the bond), we'll pay your bail. If you don't show up to court, the bondsmen loses the bail bond unless they can go find the defendant and bring them into court.

I think maybe the thing that should most change in this system is that practice of bail bondsmen/bounty hunting is made illegal. That should lower bonds significantly, and maybe enable bail bonds to function more as they were originally intended.

I have no experience with any part of this, this is just my understanding.

Why are we contracting out to a private business an actual sensible thing for the police to do? Law enforcement tracks down people with warrants why not issue warrants for people who skip out on court?

Looks like the system has been designed in ancient times when society was quite different

But that doesn't fix anything. People still have to shell out for the bail, and recovery of the prisoner is left up to a private entity (but if they get picked up by a cop on a warrant they still get sent to jail). I'm not really sure there is a way to keep whatever "good" people may be seeing in the system without all the bad parts coming along with it.

Ohhhh, I see now. Thank you.

To be clear, it's not 3 in 5 incarcerated people, it's 3 of 5 in jail. Jail is where you go after being charged, but before conviction, or if you're convicted of a misdemeanor (less than 1 year sentence).

Unfortunately, there is an incentive for local prosecutors to convict people of offences with sentences longer than a year, so as to have them moved to state prisons, but that's a somewhat separate issue.

For the life of me, I cannot find this statistic or the derivation thereof, in the link that the author of the article gives. The report linked give stats on county and city jails. It would also be interesting to know what the actual conviction rate on this is as well so that we have a clear picture of what is occurring.

> It’s also one of those policies that I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for.

Its because people (generally) believe bad people should be punished, and good people do not get arrested.

Maybe you should try reading the comment again. Nobody is advocating anything.

>It’s one of the most cruel and predatory systems that I can imagine

In fact, parent is voicing the same complaint you are voicing.

>Are you f'ing kidding me? Regardless of what crime you commit, you should be able to go home and see your family?

No, that's not what parent wrote. Parent described the current system and said he think it's crazy. Let me put it in your own words.

"Regardless of what crime you commit, you are not be able to go home and see your family because you don't have enough money" and the inverse "Regardless of what crime you commit, you are always able to go home and see your family if you do have enough money"

The cash bail system lets criminals escape while innocent people are stuck in jail. It's completely nonsensical. Lack of cash is not an indicator of guilt or crime.

> Do you even think about the implications of your ideas?

There are no ideas in the comment. Where do you see them?

sigh not the only criterion; people credibly accused of violent crimes or deemed a risk to the public should not be granted bail at all.

"You can beat your wife and then go back to your family if and only if you can borrow many thousands of dollars from a sketchy private agency" is also a stupid system.

>What ridiculous world are you advocating for here? Do you even think about the implications of your ideas?

well, given that really atrocious crimes rarely have bail set, it seems as if the 'world being advocated' by the parent here is a world in which the punishment for your crime is not scaled by the amount of money you are capable of coming up with.

The perpetrator of a bail-set crime should not have less practical punishment for the crime simply because they paid their way out of part of the punishment.

>The perpetrator of a bail-set crime should not have less practical punishment for the crime simply because they paid their way out of part of the punishment.

Except pretrial detention, which is where bail comes in, is done prior to adjudication (plea bargain, trial, etc.), not after.

As such, the folks we're talking about haven't been convicted of anything. And if, as is supposed to be the case, that one is innocent until proven guilty, you're advocating for innocent people to be punished.

Is that actually your stance on this, or were you not understanding the situation?

Just to be clear-- you're arguing for the person's financial status to determine whether or not they see their family, not their crime.

OP was saying that your financial status should not matter.

Yeah! And another thing they should have let Derek Chauvin out of jail without bail too.

> regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status?

The money is presumably to cover the cost of sending someone out to find the accused and drag them to the courthouse. If someone can't afford to pay the bond and then tries to run, I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it.

Someone has decided it is easier to simply keep the accused in jail. Assuming they've done the math on costs properly it would make sense. Taxpayers shouldn't be in a position to cover the cost of people running from the law.

It is an uncomfortable system that clearly biases in favour of the rich - but the rich are the ones covering the cost of it all so I am comfortable standing up and saying I don't mind if they get special treatment. Wealthy people pay something like half the taxes; it seems reasonable that they can wait for their day in court in comfort. Wealth comes with privileges and they aren't criminals until they are convicted.

But keeping them locked up _also_ costs money. And not just the direct costs, the taxpayers wind up on the hook for all the indirect costs too.

And thus the cycle of poverty continues and meritocracy descends into hereditary meritocracy, which isn't a meritocracy at all.

> I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it.

I see that the economic cost of perpetuating economic classes and the economic disruption of confinement without trial far outweigh this taxpayer cost. Taxpayers win when justice prevails.

This kind of extreme libertarian mindset just baffles me.

> I see that the economic cost of perpetuating economic classes and the economic disruption of confinement without trial far outweigh this taxpayer cost.

Sure, but in this instance the person you are metaphorically telling that to is the person who is paying half the costs in their capacity as a taxpayer. If there is a scheme that is cheaper than incarceration for 3rd parties and gets everyone to court on time then I'm sure everyone is in favour of it except maybe the bail bondsmen.

But the status quo is defensible - "rich people shouldn't be privileged" isn't a sensible argument. They have to get some comfort out of all that money. That is the point of money - to buy comfort. Lots of money = lots of comfort. Many people get rich through exceptionally hard work and it makes sense that they get something out of it.

If they can't buy comfort with money then there really isn't much point to it.

I never said that the rich shouldn't be rich. I am implying that the poor shouldn't be held down. And I'm also arguing that having a healthy society with a functioning welfare system reduces crime and ultimately reduces these costs.

But I think that's besides the point on this particular issue. I can't imagine whatever costs you're imagining are involved in tracking down people skipping court dates would tax the rich out of their privilege.

We're currently in a system where if a poor person does the wrong thing, a wealthy person has to cover the tab.

On the specific topic of bail bonds, one major argument is that rich people are gaining an advantage in comfort from their wealth - which I think is perfectly reasonable, given that is explicitly the purpose of wealth.

A second major argument is that the system is unreasonably harsh to the poor. Probably true, I don't know. But that isn't an argument I'm dealing with - I'm pointing out that wealthy people buying comfort is the complaint at the root of the threat and it isn't a strong complaint. Because that is what wealth is for.

> I can't imagine whatever costs you're imagining are involved in tracking down people skipping court dates would tax the rich out of their privilege.

People need to control more money than they spend so they can set themselves up for retirement. "This would just come out of their savings" is also a bad argument at all levels of the social tree.

That isn't really going to the point you raise, which I am going to leave alone, but is an aside that I think that argument is fundamentally bad because it could be repeatedly applied until it turns out you misread the future and people start running out of savings.