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Instead of the duly appointed Judge making the decision, the power is delegated to a "Risk Assessment" board. (i.e., a bunch of unaccountable social workers).

Instead of the duly appointed Judge making the decision, the power is delegated to a "Risk Assessment" board. (i.e., a bunch of unaccountable social workers). So, instead of an individual Judge getting flack for excessive bail, he can sleep at night having had his authority delegated to an anonymous 'committee' that can refuse to set bail altogether. It seems the general public -- at least in California -- has little idea of the enormous role in the judicial system played by bail bondsmen. I know dozens. They are all a bit sketchy. But, they are the front-line dealing with the lowest rungs of society. They do a lot of good, ensure their charges stay out of trouble, and show up to court. They do it for a profit. But, that doesn't diminish their role. I'm interested in seeing how it will turn out. I wish them well, but I've found abuses are more likely when the responsibility for a person is diffused amongst many.

YokoZar 8y ago
Isn't part of the problem that judges face a lot of pressures to be extra harsh when deciding bail? A board seems less likely to face political blowback when the rare out on bail person commits a serious crime. That sounds like the sort of incident that incentivizes judges to be extra harsh.
- hollerith 8y ago
  Good point. One of the arguments given for why crimes are punished less severely in Germany and France is that sentencing judges there are less accountable to voters.
  - jopsen 8y ago
    If you also people if punishments are severe enough, most will say no. If you also people if a specific punishment is severe enough, most will say yes. People require less severe punishments the more informed they are. Voting on judges is only going to get a more generalized mob effect.
- firic 8y ago
  If judges risk themselves politically if they release people on bail then that means that the will of the people is to rarely release people on bail. I know it may sound weird to you and me but apparently there are a lot of people in California who feel that someone accused of a crime should suffer in prison until they are proven innocent. That is the disadvantage of democracy, people with different opinions get to vote. The solution is to educate voters why you think that they should vote differently or to move to another place.
  - hamandcheese 8y ago
    Or maybe the solution is to remove the political (dis)incentive structure such that the will of an irrational population doesn't continue to cause harm.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      Completely agreed, but how would you propose to navigate these waters within a democratic system?
      - jacobush 8y ago
        It's really weird when it's completely normal for insurance companies to take out TV ads for the removal of a judge. On the grounds of something unrelated, of course. So, we have the will of the people. So far, so good. And then we have the complete freedom of capital to nudge the will of the people. Something is wrong with this picture.
        TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        Sure, but it's not just capital right? Especially in the internet era if you somehow removed all capital influence you just shift it to the range of people between celebrities and confidence men. The fundamental problem is that people let others unduly influence 'their' worldview. Seems even if you remove the influence of capital, you're just kicking the can rather than actually solving the problem.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  The data doesn't seem to indicate that judges are heavily influenced by outside forces when determining bail. This [1] is a paper from the Bureau of Justice Statistics on bail stats. Those data are only for felonies at the state level, which is somewhat biased but also arguably the most important group as well -- misdemeanor offenses tend to receive $0 to negligible bail. So for instance one interesting datum for that paper is release rates for people by prior offenses. Release, in the context there, can mean they were released either for an affordable bail or for no bail at all -- 'released to personal recognizance' being the phrasing. Of those with no prior convictions, 77% end up being released. For those with misdemeanor priors, 63% end up being released. And for those with felony priors, only 46% end up being released. Actually maybe 'only' is not an appropriate term there. People charged with a felony, and who have prior felony convictions, end up being released from prison 46% of the time. Anyhow, the thing I think that arguably justifies judges' decisions is that we can have a sort of completely unplanned, but phenomenally well designed, experiment. Sometimes jails are forced to release people that they would not otherwise release because of emergency releases -- that can be triggered by things such as jail overcrowding. In these cases judges are going to release those who were seen to be less desirable candidates for release. Though of course they'll be releasing the 'least less desirable' candidates. Cutting to the chase there, these people released through emergency releases ended up engaging in some form of pretrial misconduct 52% of the time with 45% of them failing to appear for their court date. The pretrial misconduct rate for intentionally released individuals ranges from 27-36%, depending on the release type, with failure to appear rates of 14-30%. The paper includes a couple of really handy tables that show logisitic regression analysis of release decisions and reoffense rates for people broken down into various categories, alongside their pretrial misconduct rates. So for instance you can see the weighting for, or against, release for various groups contrasted against how often they reoffend. In a perfect world, these would be inverses of one another. For instance if there is a large negative bias against releasing people for [x] then we'd expect to see a large positive bias in terms of pretrial misdconduct for [x]. And in most cases this does seem to be the case. But there are some exceptions. All in all, it seems like a system that does work pretty well. Should be interesting to see how well the bail committees perform by contrast! [1] - https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/prfdsc.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/prfdsc.pdf
- lurquer 8y ago
  The typical judge is not predominately influenced by political pressure. Before a judge sets bail, he will (a) have the defendant in front of him, (b) listen to arguments from the State, and (c) arguments from the defense attorney. (In some situations, a booking magistrate can set bail before the defense attorneys appearance, but the defense sttorney has the right to have the judge revisit the issue as soon as he makes an appearance.) This adversarial process is good. The State can make its arguments, and the Defendsnt can make his, and the issue is decided by an expert in the law who has st least seven years of college education. It is unwise to toss out this system in favor of a gaggle of social workers. Unfortunately, this is s trend that extends far beyond bail and California. I'm certain many readers have been involved in custody litigation where, instead of the judge listening to testimony, cross-examination, etc., the decision is effectively made by a 'Socisl Study' performed by an incompetent psychologist/social worker appointed by the Court. It's hideous. It's also popping up in professional licensing boards. A doctor, to give an example, might be brought before the state medical board for some infraction. But, instead of the board hearing the case, they require him to be scrutinized and evslusted by some private contracted group of dingbats... almost almost always non-doctors. The group's 'advisory opinion' is almost always adopted by the board. In short, there is a trend towards relieving our official 'decision-makers' from their duty to make decisions. It's disturbing.
Someone1234 8y ago
> a bunch of unaccountable social workers Some judges have appointments for life, and those that aren't often aren't recalled. How is that accountable? > anonymous 'committee' that can refuse to set bail altogether. Where are you getting the information that the committee is anonymous or unaccountable? The articles on this change that I've read didn't specify that.
- swebs 8y ago
  Judges can be recalled, though it is rare. It recently happened to the California judge who presided over the Brock Turner case over accusations that his sentence was not harsh enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner#Repercussions_to_the_judge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner#Repercussions...
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    Another instance was the removal of 3 California supreme court justices[1], including the first woman, for over turning too many death penalties and ruling against insurance companies too often (although the TV campaign to remove focused only insufficient zeal about the death penalty.) [1]Rose Bird, Cruz Reynoso, Joseph Grodin
    - samstave 8y ago
      >"over turning too many death penalties and ruling against insurance companies too often" Who specifically funded those efforts I wonder...
    - mikevp 8y ago
      In the case of Rose Bird, at least, it wasn't "overturning too many death penalty cases", it was policy of a blanket rubber-stamp "overturned" on any and all death penalty cases. She was opposed to the death penalty, and was imposing her opinion on the matter over the law.
      - TomMckenny 8y ago
namlem 8y ago
In NJ we actually use an algorithm to determine whether someone gets bail. The system is designed so that most people are released with no bail, and the algorithm uses various risks factors to determine bail for those who do get pretrial detention.

YokoZar 8y ago

Isn't part of the problem that judges face a lot of pressures to be extra harsh when deciding bail? A board seems less likely to face political blowback when the rare out on bail person commits a serious crime. That sounds like the sort of incident that incentivizes judges to be extra harsh.

hollerith 8y ago
Good point. One of the arguments given for why crimes are punished less severely in Germany and France is that sentencing judges there are less accountable to voters.
- jopsen 8y ago
  If you also people if punishments are severe enough, most will say no. If you also people if a specific punishment is severe enough, most will say yes. People require less severe punishments the more informed they are. Voting on judges is only going to get a more generalized mob effect.
firic 8y ago
If judges risk themselves politically if they release people on bail then that means that the will of the people is to rarely release people on bail. I know it may sound weird to you and me but apparently there are a lot of people in California who feel that someone accused of a crime should suffer in prison until they are proven innocent. That is the disadvantage of democracy, people with different opinions get to vote. The solution is to educate voters why you think that they should vote differently or to move to another place.
- hamandcheese 8y ago
  Or maybe the solution is to remove the political (dis)incentive structure such that the will of an irrational population doesn't continue to cause harm.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Completely agreed, but how would you propose to navigate these waters within a democratic system?
    - jacobush 8y ago
      It's really weird when it's completely normal for insurance companies to take out TV ads for the removal of a judge. On the grounds of something unrelated, of course. So, we have the will of the people. So far, so good. And then we have the complete freedom of capital to nudge the will of the people. Something is wrong with this picture.
      - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        Sure, but it's not just capital right? Especially in the internet era if you somehow removed all capital influence you just shift it to the range of people between celebrities and confidence men. The fundamental problem is that people let others unduly influence 'their' worldview. Seems even if you remove the influence of capital, you're just kicking the can rather than actually solving the problem.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
The data doesn't seem to indicate that judges are heavily influenced by outside forces when determining bail. This [1] is a paper from the Bureau of Justice Statistics on bail stats. Those data are only for felonies at the state level, which is somewhat biased but also arguably the most important group as well -- misdemeanor offenses tend to receive $0 to negligible bail. So for instance one interesting datum for that paper is release rates for people by prior offenses. Release, in the context there, can mean they were released either for an affordable bail or for no bail at all -- 'released to personal recognizance' being the phrasing. Of those with no prior convictions, 77% end up being released. For those with misdemeanor priors, 63% end up being released. And for those with felony priors, only 46% end up being released. Actually maybe 'only' is not an appropriate term there. People charged with a felony, and who have prior felony convictions, end up being released from prison 46% of the time. Anyhow, the thing I think that arguably justifies judges' decisions is that we can have a sort of completely unplanned, but phenomenally well designed, experiment. Sometimes jails are forced to release people that they would not otherwise release because of emergency releases -- that can be triggered by things such as jail overcrowding. In these cases judges are going to release those who were seen to be less desirable candidates for release. Though of course they'll be releasing the 'least less desirable' candidates. Cutting to the chase there, these people released through emergency releases ended up engaging in some form of pretrial misconduct 52% of the time with 45% of them failing to appear for their court date. The pretrial misconduct rate for intentionally released individuals ranges from 27-36%, depending on the release type, with failure to appear rates of 14-30%. The paper includes a couple of really handy tables that show logisitic regression analysis of release decisions and reoffense rates for people broken down into various categories, alongside their pretrial misconduct rates. So for instance you can see the weighting for, or against, release for various groups contrasted against how often they reoffend. In a perfect world, these would be inverses of one another. For instance if there is a large negative bias against releasing people for [x] then we'd expect to see a large positive bias in terms of pretrial misdconduct for [x]. And in most cases this does seem to be the case. But there are some exceptions. All in all, it seems like a system that does work pretty well. Should be interesting to see how well the bail committees perform by contrast! [1] - https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/prfdsc.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/prfdsc.pdf
lurquer 8y ago
The typical judge is not predominately influenced by political pressure. Before a judge sets bail, he will (a) have the defendant in front of him, (b) listen to arguments from the State, and (c) arguments from the defense attorney. (In some situations, a booking magistrate can set bail before the defense attorneys appearance, but the defense sttorney has the right to have the judge revisit the issue as soon as he makes an appearance.) This adversarial process is good. The State can make its arguments, and the Defendsnt can make his, and the issue is decided by an expert in the law who has st least seven years of college education. It is unwise to toss out this system in favor of a gaggle of social workers. Unfortunately, this is s trend that extends far beyond bail and California. I'm certain many readers have been involved in custody litigation where, instead of the judge listening to testimony, cross-examination, etc., the decision is effectively made by a 'Socisl Study' performed by an incompetent psychologist/social worker appointed by the Court. It's hideous. It's also popping up in professional licensing boards. A doctor, to give an example, might be brought before the state medical board for some infraction. But, instead of the board hearing the case, they require him to be scrutinized and evslusted by some private contracted group of dingbats... almost almost always non-doctors. The group's 'advisory opinion' is almost always adopted by the board. In short, there is a trend towards relieving our official 'decision-makers' from their duty to make decisions. It's disturbing.

Someone1234 8y ago

> a bunch of unaccountable social workers Some judges have appointments for life, and those that aren't often aren't recalled. How is that accountable? > anonymous 'committee' that can refuse to set bail altogether. Where are you getting the information that the committee is anonymous or unaccountable? The articles on this change that I've read didn't specify that.

swebs 8y ago
Judges can be recalled, though it is rare. It recently happened to the California judge who presided over the Brock Turner case over accusations that his sentence was not harsh enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner#Repercussions_to_the_judge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner#Repercussions...
- TomMckenny 8y ago
  Another instance was the removal of 3 California supreme court justices[1], including the first woman, for over turning too many death penalties and ruling against insurance companies too often (although the TV campaign to remove focused only insufficient zeal about the death penalty.) [1]Rose Bird, Cruz Reynoso, Joseph Grodin
  - samstave 8y ago
    >"over turning too many death penalties and ruling against insurance companies too often" Who specifically funded those efforts I wonder...
  - mikevp 8y ago
    In the case of Rose Bird, at least, it wasn't "overturning too many death penalty cases", it was policy of a blanket rubber-stamp "overturned" on any and all death penalty cases. She was opposed to the death penalty, and was imposing her opinion on the matter over the law.
    - TomMckenny 8y ago

namlem 8y ago

In NJ we actually use an algorithm to determine whether someone gets bail. The system is designed so that most people are released with no bail, and the algorithm uses various risks factors to determine bail for those who do get pretrial detention.