No, the problem is not conditional release (bail), or even the financial penalty (bail amount) that is assigned in advance in the even the conditions are broken.
The particular conditions may be problematic, especially when they (say) require, in practice, either a deposit or other security in the full value of the potential penalty or a contract with a licensed bail agent (which some states, and the federal system, generally do not.) But…
> Bail bondsman are a life saver to a person who can’t afford their bail and have to work in the morning. Obviously being rough comes with the job, but most bondsman aren’t villains they provide a service during a time of bad policy.
…except that bail bondsmen are a major force lobbying state governments for the policies which create the need. They are working very hard to set up, and preserves, the conditions that make them seem like lifesavers.
Most Western’s police forces are completely dysfunctional. France isn’t able to deport a non-French imam performing hate speech on French soil and living at the same address for months[1]. Police and prison forces are often caught performing lip service against both terrorism or white collar crime, practically all the cases of terrorism now include an attacker who has been liberated 2 to 50 times after murder attempts[2], and police/prison forces seem to be using law to excuse liberating obviously-dangerous people rather than using law to keep them in. So, the theory that if you break bail, you become arrestable, needs to meet actual practices in that country. Let’s hope the US govt sees enough political interest in finishing SBF to actually ensure he doesn’t flee.
[1] https://newsrnd.com/news/2022-12-08-moroccan-imam-iquioussen...
[2] For example William M in yesterday’s Paris attack (Article in French) https://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/plusieurs-blesses-apres-d...
But I might be wrong about that.
But, given the fragmented nature of policing in the US, I can see how what works here might not work there.
You can pay your bail yourself. Say a judge gives you a $5k bail. You give the government 5k and they hold it until your case is complete. Then they either return it or they deduct your fines etc from it and return anything left.
Most people don’t do this. They go to a bail bond company, which charges them $500 and then puts up the 5k for them. They get the 5k back when the defendant shows up and keep the $500.
People do skip out on bail pretty regularly, so there’s no guarantee the bondsman gets his money back. But he’s invested in finding the skipper at least as much as the government. At least in theory. The US generally doesn’t go after people very hard for skipping out on bail, they just wait until you get detained for some other crime and then arrest you for having a warrant out. Well, sometimes they still let you go after that.
In my country, technically there's a bail bond of $500 due to an archaic law, advanced to you by the Police, and you have to pay them it if you breach bail conditions.
In reality, if you breach bail, your arrest will become high priority, and you're very likely going into the remand wing once arrested until you can appear in front of a judge, and then you'll also be facing a charge for breaching bail, in addition to the charges you already faced.
And breaching bail is an offense that nearly guarantees that the judge will remand you into custody until your trial date, which could be 3 - 6 months away.
So there's no need for monetary bonds, because the existing consequences are severe enough.