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Re:Abolish the Cash Bail System by throwaway17_17 on Monday October 12, 2020 @12:12AM (#24751322)
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.

Re:Abolish the Cash Bail System by TheSpiceIsLife on Monday October 12, 2020 @12:18AM (#24751345)
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.

Re:Abolish the Cash Bail System by creato on Monday October 12, 2020 @12:33AM (#24751418)
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.

Re:Abolish the Cash Bail System by Larrikin on Monday October 12, 2020 @01:01AM (#24751530)
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?
Re:Abolish the Cash Bail System by ithkuil on Monday October 12, 2020 @01:48AM (#24751742)
Looks like the system has been designed in ancient times when society was quite different
Re:Abolish the Cash Bail System by x86_64Ubuntu on Monday October 12, 2020 @01:08AM (#24751557)
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.
Re:Abolish the Cash Bail System by TheSpiceIsLife on Monday October 12, 2020 @12:36AM (#24751428)
Ohhhh, I see now. Thank you.