Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California governor signs overhaul of bail system

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 208 posts

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#81

Post by marzell »

koolba wrote: post #28
jaxn wrote: post #14

Earlier 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.

|I’d like to see an experiment where rather than money, instead a free citizen is offered up for bail

This is fundamentally wrong... the "other person" is not the suspect in this situation, so you would be putting an innocent up for punishment in lieu of a suspect. Honestly, I'm not even sure if you are trolling or just misdirected here, but if it isn't obvious to you why this isn't an acceptable idea, I'm happy to discuss.

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#82

Post by topmonk »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #70
koolba wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than putting up cash, a friend, brother, sister, etc offers themselves as the bond for my freedom. If I abscond then they’ll be arrested and imprisoned until I’m apprehended. Assuming that “everybody has somebody”, it’s quite fair as rich or poor you’ll be able to find someone to be your bond. Again the idea is to have a strong incentive to report for trial. Assuming your actually emotionally close to the pers…

As other people have mentioned, this is a terrible idea. I wouldn't be surprised if my brother would let me rot in jail and skip bail, obviously I wouldn't offer myself up for bail, but not everybody would be in the same situation. It would be easy for people to coerce (by threats of violence etc.) people to offer themselves as bail.

It would easy for people to coerce others into giving up money for bail, as well. How is this worse in that aspect?

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#83

Post by jakeinspace »

koolba wrote: post #28
jaxn wrote: post #14

Earlier 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.

Possibly the stupidest idea I've yet to read on HN. This flies in the face of centuries of advancements in the idea of justice, quite hammurabian.

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#84

Post by jmspring »

For communities already pushing the extremes of what Prop 47 and Prop 57 allow, this will be one more blow to the common citizenry. Places like Santa Cruz have a very high recidivism rates where serial bike thieves, petty theft, even violence towards common citizens are maybe ticketed and at best brought in and released in a couple of hours will use this as further excuse to do nothing.

Examples - woman assaulted in front of her child at a city park with a ranger near by, perp didn't even get a ticket. Known bike thieves carrying a bike while riding another - nothing done.

This happens in a number of CA cities (Berkeley, SF, Santa Cruz). It's always interesting to see how ideals of one party left unchecked drive a city/state in to the ground.

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#85

Post by maxxxxx »

siruncledrew wrote: post #59
koolba wrote: post #28

Earlier 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.

So then gangs or cartel members could just forcibly “offer up” a free citizen, then skip trial while someone they don’t care about sits in jail?

That's how it used to be in Britain. Rich people would send somebody else to prison in their place.

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#86

Post by bradleybuda »

pishpash wrote: post #63
philwelch wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is the problem: even if you did not commit the crime for which you're charged, you end up in jail because you literally cannot afford not to. Then you lose your job, because you know, you were in jail. Yes; putting people in jail is a mechanism for making sure people show up to court. It is a very effective mechanism. And it remains a mechanism even after California's reforms. There's no civil right to receiv…

If that were the case, then why bother having bail hearings? Just set bail uniformly to some high number like $1M, payable only through a bail bond agency, and let those agents bid on how much premium to charge. Credible people would pay market rate for a collateralized or uncollateralized personal loan, because that's what they could have gotten from a bank in the first place. Oh right, poor people can't get loans.…

I like this framing, but I don't think your analysis is correct. There's no financial risk involved in making bail bond loans because it's impossible to default without skipping bail. Further, there's zero incentive to default - the money is never in the borrower's hands, so they can't recoup the principal, and the interest is prepaid, so defaulting doesn't save that payment.

In essence, a bail loan is actually a perfectly secured loan - it is secured by the court holding the principal in escrow. There is no "repayment risk", only risk that the bail will be forfeited due to non-appearance, which is exactly equal to the flight risk.

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#87

Post by firic »

jmspring wrote: post #84

For communities already pushing the extremes of what Prop 47 and Prop 57 allow, this will be one more blow to the common citizenry. Places like Santa Cruz have a very high recidivism rates where serial bike thieves, petty theft, even violence towards common citizens are maybe ticketed and at best brought in and released in a couple of hours will use this as further excuse to do nothing. Examples - woman assaulted in…

What does this have to do with one party? How is a primary system in one party different than a general election amongst two parties?

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#88

Post by downandout »

This is terrible. Pretrial detention in rough California county jails is often used as a bargaining chip by prosecutors to get quick convictions in exchange for probationary sentences. "Don't like the constant threat of being raped or assaulted every day? Sign the deal, take a felony conviction, and you'll get out on probation tonight".

This won't result in more poor people being released. It will simply result in a higher percentage of middle and upper class people being extorted into guilty pleas that they would not otherwise take, under the threat of losing their careers and families as a result of many months, and in a large number of cases, years, of pretrial detention.

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#89

Post by stanleydrew »

jmspring wrote: post #84

For communities already pushing the extremes of what Prop 47 and Prop 57 allow, this will be one more blow to the common citizenry. Places like Santa Cruz have a very high recidivism rates where serial bike thieves, petty theft, even violence towards common citizens are maybe ticketed and at best brought in and released in a couple of hours will use this as further excuse to do nothing. Examples - woman assaulted in…

I'm not disagreeing specifically but it seems a bit hyperbolic to say that CA cities or the whole state are being driven into the ground. Last time I checked despite some of the highest state income and property taxes people still really want to move here and stay for awhile.

Re: California governor signs overhaul of bail system

#90

Post by guelo »

jmspring wrote: post #84

For communities already pushing the extremes of what Prop 47 and Prop 57 allow, this will be one more blow to the common citizenry. Places like Santa Cruz have a very high recidivism rates where serial bike thieves, petty theft, even violence towards common citizens are maybe ticketed and at best brought in and released in a couple of hours will use this as further excuse to do nothing. Examples - woman assaulted in…

The obvious class and racial disparities in the current justice system means the city/state has already been driven to the ground for a long time. It's time to pick ourselves backup.
Post reply on HN