Abolish the Cash Bail System • Hacker News Board

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#161

Post by imgabe » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 10:07 AM UTC

krsdcbl wrote: post #155

imgabe wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like you can forfeit the bail, skip the trial and then just walk away scot-free. There's now a warrant out for your arrest and an additional charge, and you've torpedoed pretty much any chance of leniency. If it's a serious enough crime, they will come looking for you, and you will not be offered bail a second time. If it wasn't too serious, they might not come looking for you, but you'll have an active warr…

of course, but how does this stop anyone from _fleeing_ once bail is made or from obfuscating evidence whilst awaiting trial?

All those things I said stop them from fleeing? I'm not sure I understand the question. Yes, you can flee, but you're going to spend the rest of your life as a wanted criminal. It's not exactly easy.

Letting people go home without bail would include the same risk of fleeing, without the additional financial incentive. So, if the concern is people skipping trial, how does that help?

Not a lawyer, but I believe police are supposed to collect evidence before they make an arrest, to provide justification for the arrest. If there are places they still need to search, they can probably lock them off, but I think most of the evidence should already be in police custody.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#162

Post by kstenerud » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 10:19 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #25

ketzo wrote: post #2

Absolutely. It’s one of the most cruel and predatory systems that I can imagine — regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status? Christ. Give me a break. It’s also one of those policies that I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for. > Today, three out of five people in U.S. jails have not been convicted of a crime. Th…

Pro side: I don't see anything wrong with requiring a surety to ensure that people awaiting trial don't flee, in principle. It makes sure people are less likely to run away while at the same time doesnt force them to sit in jail while they await trial. It should be relative to your ability to pay, and the commercial bondsman industry seems messed up, but those are implementation details and not the core of the system…

Western Europe doesn't have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don't run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your current life (house, possessions, career, friends, family, etc) is over. People who actually are flight risks (due to the nature of the crime, extensive assets out-of-country, etc) can be held in jail pending trial, but that's pretty rare.

OR consider it this way: How much effort goes into making someone disappear into the witness relocation program? Now consider how much bigger and organized the US government is compared to some drug cartel? The amount of preparation and execution required to evade the US government for any length of time is immense, and beyond the means of almost everybody.

In Germany for example, you get a court summons, and if convicted, you get a prison summons with about a month to tie up your affairs. None of this medieval hauling people away in chains BS.

Bail might have made sense in the Wild West, when you could just run a few states over with your stuff and start over under a new name, but nowadays a fugitive life cuts you off from everything. And if someone is crazy enough to go that far, a bail bond won't make a lick of difference.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#163

Post by endogui » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 10:44 AM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #162

bawolff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro side: I don't see anything wrong with requiring a surety to ensure that people awaiting trial don't flee, in principle. It makes sure people are less likely to run away while at the same time doesnt force them to sit in jail while they await trial. It should be relative to your ability to pay, and the commercial bondsman industry seems messed up, but those are implementation details and not the core of the system…

Western Europe doesn't have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don't run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your current life (house, possessions, career, friends, family, etc) is over. People who actually are flight risks (due to the nature of the crime, extensive assets out-of-country, etc) can be held in jail pending trial, but that's pretty rare. OR consider it this way…

I mostly find your argument convincing, but keep in mind that there is no unitary "US government": most charges are under state law. This means that although the national government can know where you are down to the apartment number, you can be (legally) completely unreachable to the state that has ordered you to trial. The solution may be to just lock up the accused more liberally than in Europe, but I'm curious how Europe handles this problem in the Shengen zone.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#164

Post by kstenerud » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 10:49 AM UTC

endogui wrote: post #163

kstenerud wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western Europe doesn't have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don't run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your current life (house, possessions, career, friends, family, etc) is over. People who actually are flight risks (due to the nature of the crime, extensive assets out-of-country, etc) can be held in jail pending trial, but that's pretty rare. OR consider it this way…

I mostly find your argument convincing, but keep in mind that there is no unitary "US government": most charges are under state law. This means that although the national government can know where you are down to the apartment number, you can be (legally) completely unreachable to the state that has ordered you to trial. The solution may be to just lock up the accused more liberally than in Europe, but I'm curious ho…

You just extradite them, same as the American states do when someone flees to a different state.

I've yet to hear of someone being "untouchable" in another Shengen country. Are American state criminal laws that incompatible with each other?

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#165

Post by twic » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 10:57 AM UTC

pySSK wrote: post #100

specialist wrote: post #74

Someones, somewheres has done a better job of handling the accused pre-trial. Start there. Give me a name. Show me a role model to emulate. Then tell me how we get from here to there. But even better, just tell me what you want. Give me action steps, some talking points. Because you had me at "Hello." I really don't need a PhD thesis relitigating western philosophy since Plato. (Ditto each and every other progressive…

The article is quite clear in discussing the problem and solutions. When I don't understand a post about, let's say Rust, I acknowledge the gap in my knowledge instead of asking the software engineering community to dumb stuff down.

The article conspicuously does not mention practice in other countries. Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, and Scotland all have legal systems and cultures closely related to that of the US, and could potentially be the somewhere which has done a better job of handling the accused pre-trial.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#166

Post by jokethrowaway » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 10:59 AM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #162

bawolff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro side: I don't see anything wrong with requiring a surety to ensure that people awaiting trial don't flee, in principle. It makes sure people are less likely to run away while at the same time doesnt force them to sit in jail while they await trial. It should be relative to your ability to pay, and the commercial bondsman industry seems messed up, but those are implementation details and not the core of the system…

Western Europe doesn't have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don't run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your current life (house, possessions, career, friends, family, etc) is over. People who actually are flight risks (due to the nature of the crime, extensive assets out-of-country, etc) can be held in jail pending trial, but that's pretty rare. OR consider it this way…

Western Europe barely works.

Bringing one data point: my ex landlord wasn't really the owner of the house and was scamming rich landlords who had too many properties to control them properly. He also scammed tenants (eg. Not returning deposits).

The London metropolitan police jailed him, plenty of evidence and testimonies. He was released nonetheless, he escaped to Dubai (where he has family), he came back to the UK and opened another real estate company doing the same scam under another name. I fished him using LinkedIn and checking his old LinkedIn contacts.

Metropolitan police was aware of everything as I was in touch with a detective. He had the entire story, the new office location of the scammer, the website and photos showing the entire scam repeating itself and dropped the case.

The police has zero incentive to do anything about criminals, they just get more funding the worse criminality gets. A bail system is not perfect, but prevents people escaping, or at least collect some money from people who want to escape law.

This could be used to compensate victims, but I don't have high hopes for the government ever doing that.

If we want to prevent innocents ending up in jail we could just make victimless crimes legal. Weirdly enough, nobody seems to get behind that.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#167

Post by isthisnametaken » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 11:03 AM UTC

endogui wrote: post #163

kstenerud wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western Europe doesn't have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don't run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your current life (house, possessions, career, friends, family, etc) is over. People who actually are flight risks (due to the nature of the crime, extensive assets out-of-country, etc) can be held in jail pending trial, but that's pretty rare. OR consider it this way…

I mostly find your argument convincing, but keep in mind that there is no unitary "US government": most charges are under state law. This means that although the national government can know where you are down to the apartment number, you can be (legally) completely unreachable to the state that has ordered you to trial. The solution may be to just lock up the accused more liberally than in Europe, but I'm curious ho…

The European Arrest Warrant sorts a lot of it out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#168

Post by grasshopperpurp » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 11:03 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #161

krsdcbl wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of course, but how does this stop anyone from _fleeing_ once bail is made or from obfuscating evidence whilst awaiting trial?

All those things I said stop them from fleeing? I'm not sure I understand the question. Yes, you can flee, but you're going to spend the rest of your life as a wanted criminal. It's not exactly easy. Letting people go home without bail would include the same risk of fleeing, without the additional financial incentive. So, if the concern is people skipping trial, how does that help? Not a lawyer, but I believe police…

>All those things I said stop them from fleeing? I'm not sure I understand the question. Yes, you can flee, but you're going to spend the rest of your life as a wanted criminal. It's not exactly easy.

But, this is true with or without bail.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#169

Post by grumple » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 11:17 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #130

ketzo wrote: post #2

Absolutely. It’s one of the most cruel and predatory systems that I can imagine — regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status? Christ. Give me a break. It’s also one of those policies that I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for. > Today, three out of five people in U.S. jails have not been convicted of a crime. Th…

> Today, three out of five people in U.S. jails have not been convicted of a crime. While its not perfectly divided this way, it's worth noting that the US has different things called “jails” and “prisons” and that the former are mostly for pretrial and short-sentence incarceration and mostly run by local governments, while the latter in state systems are almost exclusively for post-conviction felony sentences, while…

I only skimmed that page you linked, because I was looking for the bit that mentions that people can spend years in jail awaiting trial. We’ve had more than a few stories of this happening at Rikers island, only for charges to be dropped altogether.

Cash bail and pretrial jail time exist to force quick plea bargains and criminal records on poor people. There’s not really justification for it. If you aren’t suspected of a serious violent crime or other crimes against people (rather than property), you shouldn’t be in jail.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#170

Post by imgabe » Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 11:22 AM UTC

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #168

imgabe wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those things I said stop them from fleeing? I'm not sure I understand the question. Yes, you can flee, but you're going to spend the rest of your life as a wanted criminal. It's not exactly easy. Letting people go home without bail would include the same risk of fleeing, without the additional financial incentive. So, if the concern is people skipping trial, how does that help? Not a lawyer, but I believe police…

>All those things I said stop them from fleeing? I'm not sure I understand the question. Yes, you can flee, but you're going to spend the rest of your life as a wanted criminal. It's not exactly easy. But, this is true with or without bail.

Right, I'm not arguing for or against bail. The comment I was originally replying to seemed to imply that bail creates a system where rich people can just commit all the crimes they want, forfeit the bail, and then go on with their lives like nothing happened. I'm just saying that's not at all the case. Just because you've paid the bail doesn't mean you're free to go and you won't suffer any consequences for the crime.