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Abolish the Cash Bail System

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Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#171

Post by DonHopkins »

dragonwriter wrote: post #136
0xBA5ED wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it is much better that a few folks don't show up to trial than to criminalize being poor. >Why the heck would we put low-and-medium risk folks in jail, to be put in a position to lose their job, house, and freaking children, when we can do these other things that don't criminalize poverty while having less disruption of life? Keep in mind, it isn't easy to suddenly and accidentally get thrown in jail. If the…

> it isn't easy to suddenly and accidentally get thrown in jail. No one accidentally gets thrown in jail, its always an intentional act by another person. And it is very easy to suddenly get thrown in jail, particularly if you are poor and/or non-white. > If the violation is minor and non-violent, then by the time it gets to that point, the person will have had many chances to straighten up (more often than not) and…

>No one accidentally gets thrown in jail,

Just as no one accidentally falls on a crucifix in the shower.

https://worldnewsdailyreport.com/catholic-priest-hospitalize...

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#172

Post by allendoerfer »

kstenerud wrote: post #164
endogui wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Since you are the second poster to spell it wrong: It's Schengen.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#173

Post by rusticpenn »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #166
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…

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…

The goal is to let some guilty walk free so that innocent are not troubled. There are people who know the weak points of the system, sometimes they will escape, but its worse to have someone innocent of a crime in prison.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#174

Post by DonHopkins »

samatman wrote: post #123
krsdcbl wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't really see the pro side. Assuming the accused is guilty and financially well able to pay for bail, this sounds like a pretty good deal to me to just drop some cash, write it off, and be able to leave and never show up for trial. Assuming the accused is innocent and financially unable to pay for bail, they'll end up in jail without ever having committed a crime. Like so much else in the US, it's showi…

> Assuming the accused is guilty and financially well able to pay for bail, this sounds like a pretty good deal to me to just drop some cash, write it off, and be able to leave and never show up for trial. I don't support cash bail, personally, but it's worth noting that some amount of the bail money can be converted to a bounty for the apprehension of those of the accused who go on to skip trial.

Is that how Putin pays for the bounties he puts on the heads of US soldiers?

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#175

Post by jopsen »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #166
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…

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…

The lack of prosecution has more to do with priority than lack of bail.

Scams can be hard to prosecute, and the harm inflicted on victims is mostly financial. Personally, I would love to see more internet scammers (spammers in particular) prosecuted, but if I think hard about I can recognize that there might be crimes it more important to investigate.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#176

Post by throwaway316943 »

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…

The people who will skip trial and go underground are the reason this system exists. These aren’t professionals with mortgages.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#177

Post by DonHopkins »

kelnos wrote: post #63
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…

I would rather see 10 guilty people flee before their trial and escape justice, than see one innocent person get stuck in jail pre-trial because they couldn't cough up the cash for a bail bond, causing them to lose their job and ruin their life. Means testing flat-out doesn't work. There are plenty of people who get caught in the system who can afford exactly zero dollars for bail, and I find it damn near impossible…

It's not that we don't want to talk about race, it's that we don't want to talk with a racist.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#178

Post by DonHopkins »

krsdcbl wrote: post #121
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…

I honestly don't really see the pro side. Assuming the accused is guilty and financially well able to pay for bail, this sounds like a pretty good deal to me to just drop some cash, write it off, and be able to leave and never show up for trial. Assuming the accused is innocent and financially unable to pay for bail, they'll end up in jail without ever having committed a crime. Like so much else in the US, it's showi…

The unstated "pro side" is simply being mean to and destroying the lives of entire classes of people you hate.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#179

Post by swebs »

teekert wrote: post #125

As a non-US person watching certain American series on Netflix just blows my mind. For example, my wife is currently watching "Good Girls" in which we see the following things that really make me never want to live in the US (I wonder if this really happens though, can someone confirm?): - You can pay to stay out of jail so only poor people stay in jail after a crime, before the trial (guess OP proves this is real).…

1. You don't pay, you just deposit money. If you show up to court, you get the money back. If you don't have that money on hand, its common to take out a loan.

2. Everyone has the right to a free public defender. I don't know if there's any study on how they compare to private lawyers.

3, 4, 5, and 7. Low income people are eligible for Medicaid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid

6. I've never heard of location mattering

I wouldn't really base my worldview of something on what I see in fiction, since the purpose of these shows is to show drama, rather than to be informative. It wouldn't be as exciting to watch people solve their problems by applying for welfare.

Re: Abolish the Cash Bail System

#180

Post by [deleted] »

kepler1 wrote: post #76

You know, systems were established for a reason . It's not like the cash bail system was some ridiculous fanciful notion that someone created to torture the poor. We have arrested people pay cash bail so that we have some forcing function to ensure that they don't flee. And maybe a little bit to provide people the incentive not to commit crime in the first place. I don't know why, but that seems to be considered disc…

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