191–200 of 288 posts
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The people who will skip trial and go underground are the reason this system exists. These aren’t professionals with mortgages.
> These aren’t professionals with mortgages. Really? What kind of people are they?
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…
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…
> regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status? The money is presumably to cover the cost of sending someone out to find the accused and drag them to the courthouse. If someone can't afford to pay the bond and then tries to run, I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it. Someone has decided it is easi…
> I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it.
I see that the economic cost of perpetuating economic classes and the economic disruption of confinement without trial far outweigh this taxpayer cost. Taxpayers win when justice prevails.
This kind of extreme libertarian mindset just baffles me.
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>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…
This is clearly not a universal truth in the US justice system. It can be very, very simple to be suddenly and through no criminal fault of a defendant’s own that they end up in jail. [1] 1 - source is myself, my clients, and my jurisdiction’s arrest statistics, along with many,many media reports hat prove your point not true.
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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…
prevents poor people escaping.
FTFY. So it's not going to solve this problem - your guy would just pay his bail and be gone.
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Yes I will vote to keep the system as is because I believe it works generally. I’m willing to vote for progress but only without system breaking regression, sorry about that
"i believe it works generally" Based on what? It doesn't seem like you are very informed on this issue. As numerous other people have pointed out any reforms would continue to allow for potentially dangerous people to be held pretrial.
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It would be interesting to see data on how many charges are dropped. You are correct that cases are submitted to the DA, they look at all the evidence and decide whether or not they will prosecute. A big part of that is "can I even get a conviction?" So you'd expect a relatively high conviction rate just based on the fact that cases where conviction is unlikely are filtered out before they ever get to trial.
The data, as amazed by organizations like the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, tends to show that prosecutors accept upwards of 80% of charges submitted for prosecution by law enforcement and that grand jury’s will indict upwards of 95% of cases presented to them. [1] The common phrasing amongst lawyers is that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich and that a DA will accept as many charges at the h…
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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 don't know. I think it is much better that a few folks don't show up to trial than to criminalize being poor. If I remember correctly, we can reduce folks not showing up by simple measures, like calling to remind folks of trial dates and making sure folks have transportation to get to trial. 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 c…
Especially if the charges are just dropped. That's got to be sooo hard - your life is a complete mess, everything you worked for is destroyed, because of... what? Some bureacratic mistake? A cop who wanted to get into the warm to do some paperwork? An overzealous politician wanting to "get tough on crime"?
I wonder if the system would change if the state had to pay people waiting for a trial their normal salary while they waited? So at least they could keep up with rent/mortgages and other payments while they waited.
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> regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status? The money is presumably to cover the cost of sending someone out to find the accused and drag them to the courthouse. If someone can't afford to pay the bond and then tries to run, I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it. Someone has decided it is easi…
And thus the cycle of poverty continues and meritocracy descends into hereditary meritocracy, which isn't a meritocracy at all. > I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it. I see that the economic cost of perpetuating economic classes and the economic disruption of confinement without trial far outweigh this taxpayer cost. Taxpayers win when justice prevails. This kind of extreme…
Sure, but in this instance the person you are metaphorically telling that to is the person who is paying half the costs in their capacity as a taxpayer. If there is a scheme that is cheaper than incarceration for 3rd parties and gets everyone to court on time then I'm sure everyone is in favour of it except maybe the bail bondsmen.
But the status quo is defensible - "rich people shouldn't be privileged" isn't a sensible argument. They have to get some comfort out of all that money. That is the point of money - to buy comfort. Lots of money = lots of comfort. Many people get rich through exceptionally hard work and it makes sense that they get something out of it.
If they can't buy comfort with money then there really isn't much point to it.