Bail Bonding System Helps Keep Men Behind Bars for Petty Off

This article raises issues that I for one have never thought of (NPR, 1/20/10).

I've written before about our prison system in the United States. I've written about the fact that 93% of adult inmates and 91% of teen inmates are male; I've written about studies that show that, all things being equal, men tend to receive harsher sentences for crime than do women. Indeed, sex may even outstrip race and class as the most important demographic factor determining sentencing. I've written about the fact that about 40% of those incarcerated men are inside for minor offenses like possession of small amounts of marijuana. And of course I've written about the ease with which men can end up in jail on trumped up charges of domestic violence or rape.

In short, whatever the inequities of the penal system in this country, they are visited overwhelmingly on men. Now, I have no problem with a system that incarcerates men more than women if the incarceration rate accurately reflects the number and severity of crimes committed. But ours doesn't do that, and that's why I complain.

But as I said, the NPR piece opens yet another window on the world of criminal law, and what it reveals isn't a bit prettier than what we've seen before. It's about the bail bonding business.

If what the article says is true, as short a time as 20 years ago, most criminal defendants in minor cases were released after arrest on PR (personal recognizance) bonds. And, again according to the article, that worked out just fine. Few defendants in those cases tried to avoid trial, so there wasn't a problem.

But apparently courts have solved it anyway. Now, PR bonds are next to nonexistent; essentially everyone gets bail, which is to say they have to pay money, either to the court or to a bail bondsman in order to get out of jail prior to trial. The problems with that approach are legion, and the article spells them out nicely. For one thing, poor defendants often can't make even the most minimal bail. The article describes men who can't come up with $500, $250 or even $50 to get out of jail.

That means they spend months in jail waiting for their trial. During that time, they lose jobs, cars, tools of their trades; if they owe child support, they can't pay it. And while they're in the slammer, the county is paying to keep them there, to the tune of about $60 per day. That's the nationwide average, which comes to over $10,000 for one person for six months.

The article tells of one man in Lubbock, Texas who was self-employed as a handyman. He didn't make a lot of money, but he kept body and soul together. He bought a station wagon so that, in case of emergency, he could sleep in the back. One December night he was trying to do just that, but couldn't due to the cold. So he tried to steal about $30 worth of blankets to keep warm. He got caught, charged and jailed under a bond of just $350. But even that amount, he couldn't pay.

So, in a story worthy of Victor Hugo, he stayed in jail at taxpayer expense for about eight months. By the time an assistant district attorney found the good sense to let him go for time served, he'd lost his car, without which he couldn't support himself. He was homeless and my guess is that by then jail didn't look so bad. The bottom line? For the theft of $30 worth of blankets, a man's life was irreparably damaged and the taxpayers of the county are out thousands of dollars. And that's not to mention the time spent by court personnel, lawyers, judges and police. When last we see this man, he's trying to get back his old job at the jail. Unfortunately, you have to be an inmate to do that job.

So why did all that happen? I guess the short answer is "money." The article just hints at the influence the prison industry has on the process of ever-greater incarceration in this country. But that industry is huge and growing, with taxpayer money flowing to build and staff more and larger prisons. And if you build it they must come, so there's no let-up in the stream of inmates, man of whom have been convicted of crimes for which no sane system incarcerates.

Also, Judges in Texas are elected and bail bondsman contribute heavily to their campaigns. That means bail bondsman get business from the judges. Read the article about how the county shorts the pretrial release program so as to not interfere with the lucrative business of issuing bonds to assure appearance in court.

And often enough, bail bondsmen don't even do their jobs. After all, what is the purpose of bail? It's to ensure that the defendant will appear in court. Truth to tell, a defendant with enough money can just pay his/her bail directly to the court and get it back when appearance is made in court. But of course a very few defendants don't appear. When that happens, the bonding company has to pay the court the full amount of the bail. That encourages them to go find the defendant via the services of a "bounty hunter" or "skip tracer." But the article says that they rarely track down the people who have skipped bail. That's usually done by police or sheriff's departments. So what exactly is the point of bailbondsmen?

Into the bargain, when a defendant skips, the bonding company rarely pays the court anything like the full amount of the bail. Five-percent is more like it. So bonding companies usually charge 10% of the full bail amount, and in the rare instances in which a defendant fails to appear for trial, they pay only 5% of what they owe. Good work if you can get it.

It's our system of criminal law at work. Expensive, punitive towards the poor and uneducated, and all aimed at keeping as many people behind bars as possible. And the bail bond part of the system involves people who haven't even been convicted of anything.

Hey, there's money to be made.

_________________
Steve Faircloth
A Way Out Bail Bonds
(220) 204-9733 Cell
NSIN# SF0105
LIC. #704058

I dont know what clown wrote this, but they obviously have no clue what is going on.

1. I dont know where people are posting bonds on petty crimes, but it aint here. We dont post a misdemeanor bond unless they have been released OR and failed to appear. Im sure some places still post, but we havent for years. And it really hurt the pocket book.

2. I dont know where people dont chase their skips because they only have to pay 5% of the bond. But it aint here. If we dont catch our skips, we pay full amount. Period.

I was going to really go off, but I will stop and consider the source. But if any of you know where I can set up shop in this fantasyland this guy is talking about, please let me know. Ill pull up stakes and head out.

Andy,

This article was in a newpaper (online) in Bexan County, Texas. I will see if I can find out which paper it was. I just can't remember which one I read it in, now. I do know it was in today's paper.

_________________
Steve Faircloth
A Way Out Bail Bonds
(220) 204-9733 Cell
NSIN# SF0105
LIC. #704058

Hey Andy, I would venture to say that a vast majority of bonds I write are misdemeanor charges... lower court (General District) stuff like DUI's, domestic assaults, FTA, shoplifting, suspended license driving... etc. etc... we do get a number of felonies in higher court.... Circuit court, but the majority are in fact misdemeanors.... I don't turn anything down that is writable unless it is something that I just have an offense to personally like child porn or something along those lines... the minor crimes pay my bills, even $500 bonds are good bets because I have a minimum of $150 and the percentage is greater on these small ones.... most of the bonds that pay my bills are less than $10K.... although I do of course look and get the occasional 25 to 100K,,,, but not too often.




I will only say that this author is grossly misinformed. I would like to know who and where he is so we could straighten him out on his facts.

I can't address other issues in the original post but just wanted to comment on these issues.

_________________
Bill Marx, Sr.
"FREE STATE BAIL BONDS"
"FREE STATE INVESTIGATIONS"
DCJS: 99-176979
Cell: 434-294-0222

"Endeavor to Persevere" "Lone Watie"

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that , comes from bad judgment" "Will Rogers"

Andy,

Here is where I got the article from:

http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=4537

It was posted by and date: January 27th, 2010 by Robert Franklin, Esq

_________________
Steve Faircloth
A Way Out Bail Bonds
(220) 204-9733 Cell
NSIN# SF0105
LIC. #704058

I sent a letter to the clown.

Bill, it used to be like that here. I could write enough small stuff to pay all my bills, consistantly. Then, each week I would get a couple of big bonds for the retirement fund, mad money or whatever else I wanted to do. I went from writing over 600 bonds a year to less than 200 since they quite posting on misdemeanors. Sucks.

Andy, have you been following our battle in Virginia with PreTrial services? Does this relate to your situation?

_________________
Bill Marx, Sr.
"FREE STATE BAIL BONDS"
"FREE STATE INVESTIGATIONS"
DCJS: 99-176979
Cell: 434-294-0222

"Endeavor to Persevere" "Lone Watie"

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that , comes from bad judgment" "Will Rogers"

Bill I havent been following it. What happened here, we had an (ex) prosecutor that interpretted the law that it was officer discretion on who posts bonds on misdemeanors. He went further instructing them to only make people post that were from out of town or had a history of FTA. Everyone else was to be released with a ticket. From his office, even warrants for bad checks and other misdemeanors were mailed out instead of served. For some reason, this spread like a bad cancer throughout the district and spilled over into some other counties as well. Only time they make you post bond is if you FTA on the original charge. The cops even got in on the act because they could write tickets for pot and dwi and stuff like that instead of having to book em in and wait on a bondsman.

The result is alot like Illinois and others of their ilk. This small rural county used to have a backlog of 700 or so outstanding warrants at any given time. Now, after several years of them playing bondsman, there are over 12k warrants outstanding. The sheriffs office dont have the resources to go serve warrants with any zealous, so they get served a few at a time as people get caught for other stuff. They never go knock on doors or look for anyone. They dont have the manpower. It has killed us.

I post a lot more misdemeanor than felony bonds here, and if the person skips they my courts want paid the full amount of the bond. If you don't pay it or don't get the defendant into custody, you don't write anymore bonds!

As to the male versus female issue, I have seen it go both ways. When the same charges are brought against both, I have often seen the male get harsher punishment than the female, even when the female's crime was a felony, versus a misdemeanor on the male. This happened recently to a friend of mine where the charges against him were admittedly self-defense by the DA, and he had to pay thousands in fines, do community service, take classes, etc, but the estranged wife was allowed to skate on felony charges because she plans to move out of state. Yep, cut her loose with a slap on the wrist, and get rid of her was what the DA said.

The trend around my area lately is to offer everybody a deferred sentence, no matter what their history is, just to get them to plead and out of court and jail. That way when they get arrested again for the same things, their history is gone and they continue to get offered the same deal. Talk about a failing court system!! Even though the judges know the person's history, they can't use it because as long as the person completed their deferred sentence, it can't be used. Probation is just as bad, because they allow the person to complete the deferred even if they break probation by violating the conditions or commiting other crimes while on a deferred sentence. In one such recent case, the probation officer claimed her hands were tied because the DA wouldn't proceed with numerous probation violations, while the DA claimed that he had never received word of such. When the person was arrested on both, the DA only said that he was offering a deferred sentence, yet again.

I think that one of the primary problems is that nobody else wants the thankless jobs of being a DA or judge, so the same ones keep getting back in office, and the hired ones are hired because they are the only ones that apply. We changed hired judges, public defender, and DA's here very often. If the PD fights for the defendant instead of copping pleas, they get fired. If the DA doesn't get enough convictions by offering pleas, they get fired. The judges just don't give a damn, because they get paid either way. It's a no-win situation!!

_________________
Kathy Blackshear
Blackshear Investigations
Blackshear Bail Bonds
Sales Associate, Prepaid Legal Services, Inc.
Walsenburg, CO

Proud Member of the AB Reject Club