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

Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 131 posts

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#61

Post by philwelch »

andrewla wrote: post #26

I'm surprised that one of the simplest solutions hasn't been tried. Bail bondsmen are restricted by statute on how much they can charge; we should at least consider lowering the rate from 10% to something much lower (1-2%?) and putting tools like follow-up text messages, etc., in the hands of these agencies. It's not ideal but it is in their best interest to ensure that their clients show up in court rather than have…

I would be surprised if there's anything preventing bail bondsmen from sending text messages to their clients. I mean, there's nothing preventing them from physically apprehending their suspects after they skip bail, so sending a text message is definitely within their means.

The problem with lowering the maximum rate is that this would put high-risk suspects in jail since they wouldn't even have the choice of making bail. Which is the same problem with abolishing cash bail. With cash bail, if someone's a higher risk, the judge can set a higher level of bail in case there's a bondsman willing to stick his neck out for him.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#62

Post by tmvphil »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #15

I wish we would focus more on reweaving our tattered social fabric so people can access housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently. We also need to make it easier for parents to put their kids first. From what I gather, money spent on preschool reduces money spent on prison down the line as just one example of the direct and known connection between how we treat our kids and crime statistics. I'm not saying…

The flawed criminal justice system is a foundational problem on the same level as access to housing and healthcare. This isn't window dressing, the disruption caused by any amount of incarceration can have lasting effects which can and do ruin innocent people's lives.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#63

Post by bigwheeler »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #51
philwelch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't have enough cash on hand to pay any amount of bail that would serve as an incentive for them to get back--especially not most people who get arrested on criminal complaints. The bail bondsman actually provides another service to the court: he has the legal power and financial incentive to apprehend a suspect and return them to the custody of the court if you skip bail. In other words, instead of the…

> But it involves money changing hands, which gets certain people all up in a lather about abolishing it. If you're found innocent is the bail fee rescinded?

If by “bail fee” you mean the money that the bail bondsman charges you, then no, it is not. You can basically think of bail bondsmen like a bank. You are borrowing money from them to get out of jail. Their fee is like a high interest rate on the loan. They are a completely separate entity than the court that decides whether you are guilty or innocent. For instance- if you hired a lawyer and were found innocent, would you expect the lawyer to refund you your legal fees? Same with the bail bondsman. He is just doing the job you paid him to do (get you out).

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#64

Post by FireBeyond »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #15

I wish we would focus more on reweaving our tattered social fabric so people can access housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently. We also need to make it easier for parents to put their kids first. From what I gather, money spent on preschool reduces money spent on prison down the line as just one example of the direct and known connection between how we treat our kids and crime statistics. I'm not saying…

> "Fire fighting" gets you hailed as a hero. "Fire prevention" tends to be dismissed as "You didn't really do anything. You just got lucky." Humans are super bad at counting the disasters that didn't happen, but should/would have. So "fire fighting" is more attractive, "sexy" and heroic.

I was at a Fire Service training course this last few weekends. And something one of the Fire / Medics said really resonated with me.

"We save lives every day. Not in a heroic way. We just don't think of it:

We give the respiratory distress patient ventilations so they don't go into respiratory, then cardiac, arrest.

We give the overdose patient ventilations so they don't go into respiratory, then cardiac, arrest.

We give the anaphylactic patient epinephrine...

and so on, and so forth.

But we don't look at it as a 'save' unless they get to the brink of death (well, technically death, but still), and we bring them back."

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#65

Post by penagwin »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #40
hirundo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there's a way to surgically implant a GPS transmitter so that they a) can't take it out with a high risk of dying and b) can be tracked by satellite. I suspect that the battery would be the big problem. On the one hand, if we're gonna do surgery on someone to surveil them hopefully it would be reserved for people actually convicted of a violent crime. On the other hand, I'd very possibly want the surgery…

Is there a depth you can install something like that so that it's simultaneously not terribly invasive of a surgery and not able to be pulled out a determined individual?

I would be HIGHLY against this idea of an implant, it feels far too distopian (and I'd argue possibly against a person's right to their body).

I'm not in the medical field but I'm sure there's many places such as "closish" to an artery that trained doctors would have no issues getting at but a random joe with a switch blade may have issues with. I'd figure just detecting the temperature change and alerting the authorities would be easier though, then you can place it just like a standard animal tracker, e.g. a needle in their arm/back.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#66

Post by richardhod »

drilldrive wrote: post #24

Cash bail is a terrible system, but not having it is worse. At least from what I understand, the states removing cash bail end up having the judges keep much more people in jail, as suddenly everybody is a flight risk.

This is a false dichotomy. There is non-cash bail too, and other systems of encouraging or ensuring people attend court.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#67

Post by hirundo »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #36
hirundo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there's a way to surgically implant a GPS transmitter so that they a) can't take it out with a high risk of dying and b) can be tracked by satellite. I suspect that the battery would be the big problem. On the one hand, if we're gonna do surgery on someone to surveil them hopefully it would be reserved for people actually convicted of a violent crime. On the other hand, I'd very possibly want the surgery…

Compulsory surgically-implanted surveillance transmitters after being charged with a crime seems… extremely dystopian?

For people not yet convicted, I agree. For the already convicted it seems less dystopian than locking them in a concrete and steel cage with violent felons.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#68

Post by DoreenMichele »

tmvphil wrote: post #62
DoreenMichele wrote: post #15

I wish we would focus more on reweaving our tattered social fabric so people can access housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently. We also need to make it easier for parents to put their kids first. From what I gather, money spent on preschool reduces money spent on prison down the line as just one example of the direct and known connection between how we treat our kids and crime statistics. I'm not saying…

The flawed criminal justice system is a foundational problem on the same level as access to housing and healthcare. This isn't window dressing, the disruption caused by any amount of incarceration can have lasting effects which can and do ruin innocent people's lives.

My best understanding is that poverty puts one at much greater risk of ending up a victim of the criminal justice system. If we dramatically shrink the size of the underclass and grow the size of the stable middle class, the devastation you describe should happen far less often, thereby giving society proportionally more resources per instance of crisis to try to properly remedy it.

Again: I'm not suggesting we shouldn't seek to address the problems with this specific system. I'm merely explaining why I think growing the middle class is a meaningful antidote to some of what happens here.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#69

Post by philwelch »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #60
philwelch wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't--which means that you do end up having to pay a decent amount of money if you get arrested and want to post bail even with a bondsman. A bail bond is basically a secured loan, and the bondsman's profit comes from what's effectively an interest payment on that loan. "People who just got arrested" are sort of a high-risk category of borrowers, so it can be a decent amount of money. The bond is secured by your…

So an innocent person who's unable to afford bail either has to wait in jail for their court date or pay a fee for their freedom? That doesn't seem inhumane at all?

It's imperfect, but no perfect solution exists.

If you're considered a low flight risk, you could be released under your own recognizance or released at a low enough level of bail that you can afford to pay the bondsman's rate. If you're considered a very high flight risk, you stay in jail. Cash bail is for the cases in the middle, and if you either abolish it or replace it with something less effective or efficient, more people will be considered "high risk" and denied bail.

If you can't afford to pay a bail bondsman, that means that the court has deemed you a high enough flight risk to require a high amount of bail, and it also means that every bail bondsman you meet also deems you a high enough risk that you don't get an affordable rate on the bail. By definition, that's a situation where literally nobody actually thinks you're actually going to show up to court of your own free will, and in that situation, there's no solution that keeps you out of jail.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#70

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

bigwheeler wrote: post #63
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it involves money changing hands, which gets certain people all up in a lather about abolishing it. If you're found innocent is the bail fee rescinded?

If by “bail fee” you mean the money that the bail bondsman charges you, then no, it is not. You can basically think of bail bondsmen like a bank. You are borrowing money from them to get out of jail. Their fee is like a high interest rate on the loan. They are a completely separate entity than the court that decides whether you are guilty or innocent. For instance- if you hired a lawyer and were found innocent, would…

I wonder if the bail fees have increased over the years because of the existence of said bondsmen.
Post reply on HN