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Mainprise is a startup building a peer-to-peer bail payment platform on NEM Blockchain. The BAIL Token platform will enable family and friends to request low fe

Mainprise is a startup building a peer-to-peer bail payment platform on NEM Blockchain. The BAIL Token platform will enable family and friends to request low fee bail payments. Instead of throwing money away on bail bondsmen. Families apply for bail on the platform. After verifying their identity, they provide details on the accused such as name, bail amount, arrest charge, jail location, and booking number. The details along with details sourced from public data are fed into an AI-based risk scoring tool to generate a risk score. The tool will use data from millions of cases to help determine if the accused is likely to skip trial or commit another crime if released. Based on the score a fee of 0-3% is paid by the applicant. Once the accused is released, we monitor the court calendars and notify them of court dates and changes. After attending court and regardless of the verdict, guilty or innocent. The bail payment is refunded by the court and returned to the token holders along with a share of the fee collected. http://mainprise.io http://mainprise.io YouTube videos: http://youtube.com/c/mainpriseio http://youtube.com/c/mainpriseio

jgtrosh 8y ago
> along with a share of the fee I don't understand this bit: if it's a fee, why return any of it? Is the returned part of the fee to cover extra cost in cases where they don't go to court? Otherwise that extra part is not a fee, just extra bail.
- tharwat 8y ago
  When bail is paid in full it's returned by the courts when the person attends trial (regardless of the trial outcome). What this platform does is get many people "token holders to make small contributions to paying someone's bail. When they attend court the payment is returned back to the token holders.
  - jgtrosh 8y ago
    That I understood; I am talking specifically about the fee described previously. That is clearly to cover costs for the service and I don't see why that would be returned even partially to the holders.
moate 8y ago
This is just treating the symptoms, not curing the disease. Bail, it it's current form and enforcement, is a problem. Providing bail services is a way to use this problem to make money. It's better than putting your hands in your pocket, but unless you're using some amount of your fees generated to lobby for bail reform (thus harming your platform in the long term) you're just another bail bondsman.
- tharwat 8y ago
  The concept of bail has been around since 399 BC with Plato tried to get a bond for his friend Socrates. It's been a problem a long time. If you read the whitepaper, part of the platform is to do exactly what the big insurance companies backing bail bonding agencies, lobbyists and PACs are doing by making investing in similar efforts to derail the system. Calling out the big insurers profiting off bail. What this platform does is match bail requests with people willing to make small contributions to helping to pay someone's bail. Knowing that if the bail is paid in full it's returned by the courts when the accused attends trial. It would be the same as someone putting up a gofund me page. Except it happens much faster and it's already funded.
  - moate 8y ago
    Cool straw man. My thesis: Bail shouldn't exist, it creates a 2 tied system, and creating a platform, business, whatever, that exploits that system to make money isn't "being a super nice person who just wants to help" it's profiting off the prison industrial complex unless you spend all they money you made solely to reform the system. It sounds like they're trying to help. This doesn't mean they're not also making money by attaching themselves to the problem. The world is shades of gray. I'm sure the bail bondsmen sleep at night saying they're helping people get back to their families faster.
maym86 8y ago
No thanks. Bail + blockchain + AI is still just bail. The point is this is still based on proving you or your family's ability to pay a bail with added "AI" which is notoriously bad for this kind of thing due to historical training data being full of bias. The book weapons of math destruction goes into the issues with machine learning and the prison system. https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com > Families apply for bail on the platform. The fact that you focus on a family's ability to pay just highlights one way in which the system is biased against people without family support.
- tharwat 8y ago
  Not just family. But anyone can apply for bail. Even the offender can dial a tollfree number to apply. The risk assessment is used to predict the likelihood of FTA (same risk assessment being using in court systems today). This factor is provided to "peers" to help them determine if they want to contribute to bail payments.
  - maym86 8y ago
    You are missing the point. It depends on who you know or who you can convince to provide money. This is inherently unfair.
  - FireBeyond 8y ago
    I'm looking for it now, but there was an article recently that talked about a system that had been gamed in that it deemed almost 99% of people a flight risk.
phyzome 8y ago
> The details along with details sourced from public data are fed into an AI-based risk scoring tool to generate a risk score. The tool will use data from millions of cases to help determine if the accused is likely to skip trial or commit another crime if released. Yes, I'm sure your AI will be magically free from bias when fed data from a biased system. >_>
- tharwat 8y ago
  Again, the risk assessment is simply used to provide a risk factor to token holders who are contributing to bail payments. So "Bob" is willing to help contribute to bail payments for any low-risk offender. While someone else may be willing to make contributions towards a high-risk offender. It's not used in the court system to make any decision. Only on the platform.
phyzome 8y ago
You're imagining that courts will sign up directly with your startup? Have you ever actually gone in and paid bail for someone? Do you have any idea how archaic the process is? Also, the blockchain side of this is completely and utterly pointless. Use a database.

jgtrosh 8y ago

> along with a share of the fee I don't understand this bit: if it's a fee, why return any of it? Is the returned part of the fee to cover extra cost in cases where they don't go to court? Otherwise that extra part is not a fee, just extra bail.

tharwat 8y ago
When bail is paid in full it's returned by the courts when the person attends trial (regardless of the trial outcome). What this platform does is get many people "token holders to make small contributions to paying someone's bail. When they attend court the payment is returned back to the token holders.
- jgtrosh 8y ago
  That I understood; I am talking specifically about the fee described previously. That is clearly to cover costs for the service and I don't see why that would be returned even partially to the holders.

moate 8y ago

This is just treating the symptoms, not curing the disease. Bail, it it's current form and enforcement, is a problem. Providing bail services is a way to use this problem to make money. It's better than putting your hands in your pocket, but unless you're using some amount of your fees generated to lobby for bail reform (thus harming your platform in the long term) you're just another bail bondsman.

tharwat 8y ago
The concept of bail has been around since 399 BC with Plato tried to get a bond for his friend Socrates. It's been a problem a long time. If you read the whitepaper, part of the platform is to do exactly what the big insurance companies backing bail bonding agencies, lobbyists and PACs are doing by making investing in similar efforts to derail the system. Calling out the big insurers profiting off bail. What this platform does is match bail requests with people willing to make small contributions to helping to pay someone's bail. Knowing that if the bail is paid in full it's returned by the courts when the accused attends trial. It would be the same as someone putting up a gofund me page. Except it happens much faster and it's already funded.
- moate 8y ago
  Cool straw man. My thesis: Bail shouldn't exist, it creates a 2 tied system, and creating a platform, business, whatever, that exploits that system to make money isn't "being a super nice person who just wants to help" it's profiting off the prison industrial complex unless you spend all they money you made solely to reform the system. It sounds like they're trying to help. This doesn't mean they're not also making money by attaching themselves to the problem. The world is shades of gray. I'm sure the bail bondsmen sleep at night saying they're helping people get back to their families faster.

maym86 8y ago

No thanks. Bail + blockchain + AI is still just bail. The point is this is still based on proving you or your family's ability to pay a bail with added "AI" which is notoriously bad for this kind of thing due to historical training data being full of bias. The book weapons of math destruction goes into the issues with machine learning and the prison system. https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com > Families apply for bail on the platform. The fact that you focus on a family's ability to pay just highlights one way in which the system is biased against people without family support.

tharwat 8y ago
Not just family. But anyone can apply for bail. Even the offender can dial a tollfree number to apply. The risk assessment is used to predict the likelihood of FTA (same risk assessment being using in court systems today). This factor is provided to "peers" to help them determine if they want to contribute to bail payments.
- maym86 8y ago
  You are missing the point. It depends on who you know or who you can convince to provide money. This is inherently unfair.
- FireBeyond 8y ago
  I'm looking for it now, but there was an article recently that talked about a system that had been gamed in that it deemed almost 99% of people a flight risk.

phyzome 8y ago

> The details along with details sourced from public data are fed into an AI-based risk scoring tool to generate a risk score. The tool will use data from millions of cases to help determine if the accused is likely to skip trial or commit another crime if released. Yes, I'm sure your AI will be magically free from bias when fed data from a biased system. >_>

tharwat 8y ago
Again, the risk assessment is simply used to provide a risk factor to token holders who are contributing to bail payments. So "Bob" is willing to help contribute to bail payments for any low-risk offender. While someone else may be willing to make contributions towards a high-risk offender. It's not used in the court system to make any decision. Only on the platform.

phyzome 8y ago

You're imagining that courts will sign up directly with your startup? Have you ever actually gone in and paid bail for someone? Do you have any idea how archaic the process is? Also, the blockchain side of this is completely and utterly pointless. Use a database.