4 ms·

> Getting people to show up to trial is the main one. So I think at the top end of the spectrum this might make sense. The problem is that a very large percent

> Getting people to show up to trial is the main one. So I think at the top end of the spectrum this might make sense. The problem is that a very large percentage people in jail are there because their bail was literally $50 or $100 but they didn't have the money to pay it, so they end up in jail for months or years on end. And for these people, bail has zero impact on whether they show up for trial.

woodpanel 8y ago
> And for these people, bail has zero impact on whether they show up for trial. All the while that 50$-based jail time has disastrous impact on their personal lives (losing jobs, eviction by landlords, more complicated interaction with police, three-strike-rules ....).
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  Well, then a common sense incremental change would be to drop or discourage those tiny bail amounts, not throw out the whole system. Speaking of losing jobs, a whole industry just lost theirs.
  - woodpanel 8y ago
    I agree with your first point: incremental changes are often for the better. Regarding your second: > Speaking of losing jobs, a whole industry just lost theirs Doesn't the legitimacy of the job come before the right to perform it? A whole industry just lost their jobs is probably what many said in 1833 after the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act.
    - WillPostForFood 8y ago
      I agree that legitimacy of the job comes first, but don't think bail bondsmen are illegitimate. They definitely aren't illegitimate if you think there should be bail system. Instead of comparing it to slavery (which is borderline Godwin's Law), I'd compare it to being a distiller when 18th amendment passed.
      - canhascodez 8y ago
        I reject that comparison. Bail is an administrative construct, not a physical substance. It is a "peculiar institution".
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > They definitely aren't illegitimate if you think there should be bail system Incorrect. First, a bail system still will exist in California, just not a money bail system. Second, most of the history of money bail didn't require up front payment and specifically prohibited those providing surety from getting paid. So, yes, it's quite possible (and the historical norm) to both accept bail systems as legitimate—even specifically when money bail systems are seen as legitimate—and view anything like the current American profit-driven predatory lending and privatized fugitive apprehension industry surrounding it as quite illegitimate.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Well, then a common sense incremental change would be to drop or discourage those tiny bail amounts, Or, we could instead try replacing money bail in a relatively small jurisdiction (say, Washington, D.C.) for a number of years, and if it works well do it in a larger jurisdiction. Once the first step of that has been done and shown to work, the case for smaller incremental steps in the next jurisdiction, though, is pretty weak. You seem to think we are at the point of considering a first practical test, but that step was taken years ago.
    - WillPostForFood 8y ago
      Since DC got rid of the whole system, you don’t know if they could have achieved a better result with an incremental move.
creddit 8y ago
Is that true? Why not get a bail bond??
- DSMan195276 8y ago
  I'm assuming that is the bail bond. Bail bonds aren't free, you pay a small percentage that you don't get back. So if you have no money at all, you obviously can't afford to pay the bail, but you also can't afford to get a bondsman to pay it instead.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  Bail bond is typically 10% of the bail amount. And that's the bail bondsman's to keep. So, on a $500 bail, that's $50. If you're indigent, you might not have $50.
Gibbon1 8y ago
I think it's devolved into mostly getting in the way and generating perverse outcomes. Used to be if you skipped town the local authorities would have no way of tracking you down. And authorities where ever you fled to would often have no ability to tell if you had a warrant. That's mostly not true anymore. So then you have people sitting in jail because they're broke, probably too broke to fee even. And for crimes where if they did flee might be in everyone's interest. The police will surely be heartbroken to find out a local trouble maker decided to leave town. /s
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I have the data available for felonies right here [1]. And according to those data 77% of people without prior convictions end up being released (63% for those with only misdemeanor convictions, 46% with prior felony convictions). Of those released, about 33% are released for $0 bail, and the remainder met financial conditions. For those who faced a bail of < $5,000 70% were able to meet it. I'd like a non-media source indicating that "a very large percentage" of people in jail are in there due in an inability to meet bail of $50 to $100, because all the data I've seen indicates that you're either making things up as you go or being misled by a source who did the same (which is why I requested a non-media source). [1] - https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/prfdsc.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/prfdsc.pdf
- adam-a 8y ago
  According to your link 32% of all defendants are held on bail, I would call that "a very large percentage". It would be interesting to see what proportion of the total incarcerated population those held on bail made up too. It's also worth pointing out that that data stops at 2004 and shows the amount held on bail increased ~15% in 14 years, from the "media sources" I've read it has apparently not stopped going up in the most recent 14 years either.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Those data are only for felonies -- bails tend to be much higher. People who face bails of $50 to $100 are going to disproportionately be charged with misdemeanors, and we'd expect a much larger percentage to be able to meet it than the bails for felonies.
  - pc86 8y ago
    The original statement was "a very large percentage people in jail are there because their bail was literally $50 or $100 but they didn't have the money to pay it." So to determine the accuracy of that you need to see how many people are in jail specifically for failure to pay a very small bail amount. The fact that 32% are held on bail doesn't address the original point. From the linked source, page three: > When the bail was under $10,000, most defendants secured release, including 7 in 10 defendants with bail under $5,000 (figure 3). So we're talking about $50-100 bail fines, but even if you raise the definition of "small amount" to $5k, 70% of those are released. We're already down into single digit percentages of folks with a <$5k bail set who are financially unable to pay it. I wish the data went to $1k and below because I imagine the percentage unable to pay would be minuscule.

woodpanel 8y ago

> And for these people, bail has zero impact on whether they show up for trial. All the while that 50$-based jail time has disastrous impact on their personal lives (losing jobs, eviction by landlords, more complicated interaction with police, three-strike-rules ....).

WillPostForFood 8y ago
Well, then a common sense incremental change would be to drop or discourage those tiny bail amounts, not throw out the whole system. Speaking of losing jobs, a whole industry just lost theirs.
- woodpanel 8y ago
  I agree with your first point: incremental changes are often for the better. Regarding your second: > Speaking of losing jobs, a whole industry just lost theirs Doesn't the legitimacy of the job come before the right to perform it? A whole industry just lost their jobs is probably what many said in 1833 after the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act.
  - WillPostForFood 8y ago
    I agree that legitimacy of the job comes first, but don't think bail bondsmen are illegitimate. They definitely aren't illegitimate if you think there should be bail system. Instead of comparing it to slavery (which is borderline Godwin's Law), I'd compare it to being a distiller when 18th amendment passed.
    - canhascodez 8y ago
      I reject that comparison. Bail is an administrative construct, not a physical substance. It is a "peculiar institution".
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > They definitely aren't illegitimate if you think there should be bail system Incorrect. First, a bail system still will exist in California, just not a money bail system. Second, most of the history of money bail didn't require up front payment and specifically prohibited those providing surety from getting paid. So, yes, it's quite possible (and the historical norm) to both accept bail systems as legitimate—even specifically when money bail systems are seen as legitimate—and view anything like the current American profit-driven predatory lending and privatized fugitive apprehension industry surrounding it as quite illegitimate.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Well, then a common sense incremental change would be to drop or discourage those tiny bail amounts, Or, we could instead try replacing money bail in a relatively small jurisdiction (say, Washington, D.C.) for a number of years, and if it works well do it in a larger jurisdiction. Once the first step of that has been done and shown to work, the case for smaller incremental steps in the next jurisdiction, though, is pretty weak. You seem to think we are at the point of considering a first practical test, but that step was taken years ago.
  - WillPostForFood 8y ago
    Since DC got rid of the whole system, you don’t know if they could have achieved a better result with an incremental move.

creddit 8y ago

Is that true? Why not get a bail bond??

DSMan195276 8y ago
I'm assuming that is the bail bond. Bail bonds aren't free, you pay a small percentage that you don't get back. So if you have no money at all, you obviously can't afford to pay the bail, but you also can't afford to get a bondsman to pay it instead.
alistairSH 8y ago
Bail bond is typically 10% of the bail amount. And that's the bail bondsman's to keep. So, on a $500 bail, that's $50. If you're indigent, you might not have $50.

Gibbon1 8y ago

I think it's devolved into mostly getting in the way and generating perverse outcomes. Used to be if you skipped town the local authorities would have no way of tracking you down. And authorities where ever you fled to would often have no ability to tell if you had a warrant. That's mostly not true anymore. So then you have people sitting in jail because they're broke, probably too broke to fee even. And for crimes where if they did flee might be in everyone's interest. The police will surely be heartbroken to find out a local trouble maker decided to leave town. /s

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

I have the data available for felonies right here [1]. And according to those data 77% of people without prior convictions end up being released (63% for those with only misdemeanor convictions, 46% with prior felony convictions). Of those released, about 33% are released for $0 bail, and the remainder met financial conditions. For those who faced a bail of < $5,000 70% were able to meet it. I'd like a non-media source indicating that "a very large percentage" of people in jail are in there due in an inability to meet bail of $50 to $100, because all the data I've seen indicates that you're either making things up as you go or being misled by a source who did the same (which is why I requested a non-media source). [1] - https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/prfdsc.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/prfdsc.pdf

adam-a 8y ago
According to your link 32% of all defendants are held on bail, I would call that "a very large percentage". It would be interesting to see what proportion of the total incarcerated population those held on bail made up too. It's also worth pointing out that that data stops at 2004 and shows the amount held on bail increased ~15% in 14 years, from the "media sources" I've read it has apparently not stopped going up in the most recent 14 years either.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  Those data are only for felonies -- bails tend to be much higher. People who face bails of $50 to $100 are going to disproportionately be charged with misdemeanors, and we'd expect a much larger percentage to be able to meet it than the bails for felonies.
- pc86 8y ago
  The original statement was "a very large percentage people in jail are there because their bail was literally $50 or $100 but they didn't have the money to pay it." So to determine the accuracy of that you need to see how many people are in jail specifically for failure to pay a very small bail amount. The fact that 32% are held on bail doesn't address the original point. From the linked source, page three: > When the bail was under $10,000, most defendants secured release, including 7 in 10 defendants with bail under $5,000 (figure 3). So we're talking about $50-100 bail fines, but even if you raise the definition of "small amount" to $5k, 70% of those are released. We're already down into single digit percentages of folks with a <$5k bail set who are financially unable to pay it. I wish the data went to $1k and below because I imagine the percentage unable to pay would be minuscule.