I wish Gov. Jerry Brown was young enough to run for President. I don't like the crop of Democrats that are vying for 2020.
>I am Governor Jerry Brown
>My aura smiles and never frowns
>Soon I will be president...
California governor signs overhaul of bail system
71–80 of 208 posts
Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't think of good sides to the bail system. What positives do you see.
1. Get people to show up for trial 2. Get dangerous people -- perhaps with little to lose if they are already facing serious charges -- off the street faster Of course these benefits need to be balanced against the costs imposed on the defendent (who has not been convicted yet).
> Get dangerous people... off the street faster
In the new system, dangerous people won't be released, regardless of how much money they have.
Bail means that poor dangerous and poor non-dangerous people are detained, and rich dangerous and rich non-dangerous people are released. It's not clear to me that the reason you stated is actually produced by the bail system.
> Get people to show up for trial
I'd be very interested in some numbers backing this up; surely there is some effect here, but I have no idea if bail would make 1% of people or 99% of people show up that would otherwise skip a court appearance.
My gut feel is that if you're impulsive enough to skip a court date and incur a police warrant, the threat of losing your bail bond isn't going to make much of a difference.
I did a quick Google search which brought up this paper from the 70s:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/32349NCJRS.pdf
"A random sample of 756 defendants released on bail in Charlotte, North Caro1ina in 1973 was studied to determine the relative importance of various factors in determining the likelihood that a bailed defendant will fail to appear in court... The most important factors were found to be court disposition time (the amount of time between release on bail and court disposition), criminal record, and form of bail... Comparison of various forms of bail were made, adjusting simultaneously for criminal history and court disposition time. Forms of bail that rely solely on the threat of financial loss to ensure appearance in court proved to be the worst in terms of rates of nonappearance and rearrest. "
I'm sure there's a criminal justice system expert around here that can comment on some more recent research.
Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting people to show up to trial is the main one. I’d like to see an experiment where rather than money, instead a free citizen is offered up for bail. And if you don’t show up for trial the citizen goes to jail till they apprehend you.
I don't understand how a bail is more motivating for someone to show up to trial than the threat of arrest with no bail. We don't have people pre-pay to not commit other crimes, why does specifically this one get it? This is ignoring all the other, wealth disparity type issues, with bail. Seems to me like it just privatized part of the justice system - instead of cops chasing down delinquent criminals, it's bail bond…
> I don't understand how a bail is more motivating for someone to show up to trial than the threat of arrest with no bail.
In some cases it may remove a significant portion of the money the accused might flee with. In others, it can provide social constraints that are more binding than legal ones. For example, if your parents but their house (or a large portion of what the sale of it would net) up as collateral for your bail, you may be less inclined to flee if it would financially ruin them.
Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's mostly due to the increasing evidence of: * Clear biases in distribution of bail vs. non-bail gated release * The substantially unbalanced cost of bail for poor vs. middle-class and up. Basically: if your bail costs $1000 and you make $50k/year you can probably arrange cash to cover it. If you make 20k/year you probably cannot, so your option is to lose $100 - bail bond is not returned to you - or you literally…
>or you literally go to jail without a trial. You go to jail until your trial. Not quite the same thing.
I go, lets say I'm arrested for some reason (wrong place wrong time, being at a protest, being the wrong colour for the neighborhood). Ican't afford bail, now I go to jail.
2 months later the charges are dropped.
I spent two months in jail, I didn't even have a trial, so I wasn't even in jail "until my trial", I was jailed for no reason. That is enough to get me fired - I didn't come to work, and US law doesn't protect me from being fired when a court prevents me from going to work.
The /only/ reasons for jail before trial is if there is a risk to the public or a documented risk of not appearing. The existing bail laws punish you according to what prosecution and police can get away with, and functionally turn "bail law" into jail for the non-rich, fines for the middle class. Maybe that could be reduced if the government were considered liable for any and all losses suffered by someone who is innocent, including loss of employment. That would given prosecutors and police some balance to the incentives to prevent bail or demand large bail amounts.
Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the improved ability to track people probably helps sell it politically to the "tough on crime" crowd.
Faster due process has a much bigger impact than tracking people down (which is both expensive and dangerous). There will also likely be an increase in "no bond" holds until the court date. This is a step in the right direction, but the entire incarceration machine needs an overhaul/downsize.
my inclination is that all non-violent offenses should be on recognizance (or however that's worded) unless there's historic evidence that you will miss your court dates. If you have previously skipped court dates then we shouldn't necessarily assume that you would make future court dates, so why do we believe bail would mean anything?
Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because your passport will be checked. That's far more a concern for people trying to re-enter the United States. For those leaving, this is hardly an impediment.
Your passport is checked when you leave the U.S. It’s done electronically though, so if your passport is clear you don’t even notice it when you leave (unlike say the exit Visa stamp you get in Schegen countries). If your passport comes back flagged when you’re leaving the U.S. the FBI or Marshall’s or whoever can apprehend you.
How does the US electronically check my passport when driving into Canada? I can seen Canada doing it on entry and relaying that to the US but otherwise, how does that check get done?
Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting people to show up to trial is the main one. I’d like to see an experiment where rather than money, instead a free citizen is offered up for bail. And if you don’t show up for trial the citizen goes to jail till they apprehend you.
I don't understand how a bail is more motivating for someone to show up to trial than the threat of arrest with no bail. We don't have people pre-pay to not commit other crimes, why does specifically this one get it? This is ignoring all the other, wealth disparity type issues, with bail. Seems to me like it just privatized part of the justice system - instead of cops chasing down delinquent criminals, it's bail bond…
Bail long predates the existence of the police as we now know them.
I have a suspicion though that if you eliminated bail, what you'd end up doing would functionally be making all the bail bondsmen (who currently are limited in what they can do) disappear but suddenly create a need for a bunch more police (who have broader powers).
I don't know if that is really a positive tradeoff. I think the bail bondsmen are likely to have more repercussions if they just murder you, your family, and your dog in your house; the police can more or less do that with impunity in some places, de facto if not de jure.
Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system
#78I'm not sure if I agree with this change (there are positives and negatives to the bail system), but I love that in a federal system individual states are free to experiment like this. Maybe it will work, and then other states can adopt it.
No one will know if it works. "Whether it will lead to higher incarceration rates is unknown because courts don’t track the data that would make such an analysis possible, lawmakers have said."
Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system
#79[deleted]
Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't think of good sides to the bail system. What positives do you see.
Getting people to show up to trial is the main one. I’d like to see an experiment where rather than money, instead a free citizen is offered up for bail. And if you don’t show up for trial the citizen goes to jail till they apprehend you.
That's literally how bail worked in its original incarnation. Someone would post bail on your behalf, and if you skipped down, _they_ would be responsible for the bail amount. So therefore they would basically be taking responsibility for ensuring you stuck around and made it to court.
It obviously doesn't work well for people without a connection to the community in which they were arrested.