Bail seems like an outdated concept that has ballooned into a mechanism to extort money with little public benifit. When a deposit was enough to keep someone c

Bail seems like an outdated concept that has ballooned into a mechanism to extort money with little public benifit. When a deposit was enough to keep someone charged with a crime from running off to the next town and never being heard from again it was probably effective. Now, if bail is a major factor in whether a defendant returns to court or turns wanted outlaw, the charges are either too minor to warrent bail, or so serious that paying for release probably should not have ever been an option. Bail is just an initial deposit, a checksum to make sure no one gets out free: either cash or tax dollars for the administration and encarceration of poor defendants. Hope this doesn't turn into a system of simply optimizing bail payment per offer by setting custom amounts.