12 ms·

Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

108 points by rafaelc 8y ago

elicash 8y ago
There shouldn't be fees of ANY kind in the justice system.
- mLuby 8y ago
  Exactly. Justice is a public concern and therefore should be entirely funded by taxes. The moment incentives other than serving justice are introduced (money, lawyer win rate, etc), the system is perverted.
- dumbfounder 8y ago
  Strictly speaking it isn't a fee. If you have all of the money for your bail you give it up but you get all of it back when you show up court. If you use a bail bondsman that's who charges you the fee. They are basically giving you a loan, and then they are on the hook to make sure you show up.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    I guess I'm confused to why a system needs to have bail bondsmen - isn't the idea behind bail being something you can possibly give up but want to get back? Isn't bail bonds something you can't afford? Even just paying the fee might be too much for people, but the alternative is to wait in jail an unjust amount of time.
    - philwelch 8y ago
      Most people don't have enough cash on hand to pay any amount of bail that would serve as an incentive for them to get back--especially not most people who get arrested on criminal complaints. The bail bondsman actually provides another service to the court: he has the legal power and financial incentive to apprehend a suspect and return them to the custody of the court if you skip bail. In other words, instead of the county sheriff having to worry about apprehending everyone who skips bail, they effectively outsource it to the bail bondsman. The bail bondsman thus has an incentive to make sure you don't skip bail, or failing that, to make sure that he can apprehend you--and these risks are priced into the effective rate of interest on the bail bond. (Most "bounty hunters" in the US are just bail bondsmen trying to recover their suspect, or somebody working for or contracted by the same.) It's a fairly underrated and underappreciated market mechanism where the entire problem of "making sure people show up to court if they are on trial" can be handled by a competitive market, usually more efficiently or humanely than most local governments would do themselves. But it involves money changing hands, which gets certain people all up in a lather about abolishing it.
      - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        > But it involves money changing hands, which gets certain people all up in a lather about abolishing it. If you're found innocent is the bail fee rescinded?
        philwelch 8y ago
        It isn't--which means that you do end up having to pay a decent amount of money if you get arrested and want to post bail even with a bondsman. A bail bond is basically a secured loan, and the bondsman's profit comes from what's effectively an interest payment on that loan. "People who just got arrested" are sort of a high-risk category of borrowers, so it can be a decent amount of money. The bond is secured by your person--i.e. if the bondsman can apprehend you and take you to county jail, he gets his money back--but it's expensive and risky to do that.
        SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        So an innocent person who's unable to afford bail either has to wait in jail for their court date or pay a fee for their freedom? That doesn't seem inhumane at all?
        philwelch 8y ago
        It's imperfect, but no perfect solution exists. If you're considered a low flight risk, you could be released under your own recognizance or released at a low enough level of bail that you can afford to pay the bondsman's rate. If you're considered a very high flight risk, you stay in jail. Cash bail is for the cases in the middle, and if you either abolish it or replace it with something less effective or efficient, more people will be considered "high risk" and denied bail. If you can't afford to pay a bail bondsman, that means that the court has deemed you a high enough flight risk to require a high amount of bail, and it also means that every bail bondsman you meet also deems you a high enough risk that you don't get an affordable rate on the bail. By definition, that's a situation where literally nobody actually thinks you're actually going to show up to court of your own free will, and in that situation, there's no solution that keeps you out of jail.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
Someone1234 8y ago
This is a very interesting data driven article that will make you depressed. I recommend it. > Technological solutions, like electronic anklets that monitor an individual’s whereabouts, are another option. Even sending text-message reminders to show up in court makes it more likely that a defendant will do so. All these options are cheaper than incarceration. I hope this gains popularity. Cash bail discriminates against the poor and is unfairly applied (see article); using technological tracking, check-ins, and similar might be a fairer solution that can be applied uniformly. I would like to say on a more general note: The influence of money in US criminal justice seems to corrupt everything it touches. From prisons, to parole, to representation, to sentencing, and beyond. Everything we can do to get money's influence out of criminal justice we should do.
- candiodari 8y ago
  The article also proves things that people were unwilling to accept in this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19253333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19253333 There people always made the point that human judges making just decisions based on fairness. Well, clearly not. Algorithms would be another, better way to know exactly what makes the determination if a person should be released awaiting trial or not.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    >Algorithms would be another, better way to know exactly what makes the determination if a person should be released awaiting trial or not. Isn't it a source of constant concern that the algorithms that end up being used in law enforcement inevitably end up employing the same stereotypes that their flesh and blood counterparts have?
    - netsharc 8y ago
      But wouldn't algorithms be easy to examine? At the least you can test it with similar circumstances and modify the "race" variable and see if the results are consistent or different. Humans have many self-image protective layers when questioned (e.g. "I'm not racist, I have black friends!"), Bbut hopefully algorithms are more transparent...
m-p-3 8y ago
The justice system in the US is skewed towards profit. No real justice can prevail if the system favors money above all.
mnm1 8y ago
With the ubiquitous tracking technology we have these days, why are we still putting innocent people in jail? It's barbaric and unjust. Give them a GPS bracelet and let them go home or wherever they want. Or have we given up completely on the "innocent until proven guilty" idea?
- sokoloff 8y ago
  Suppose someone is accused of a mass shooting, murdering their neighbor, beating up their spouse, carjacking, or armed robbery. Right then, off you go; just wear this bracelet... Doesn't seem particularly reasonable to not incarcerate anyone before trial.
  - tdb7893 8y ago
    I think it makes sense to jail people who are an immediate harm to others like serial killers and some spousal abusers. Jailing for even things like armed robbery and carjacking seem often unnecessary if you can track people, very few people will keep carjacking and armed robbing while under surveillance like that.
    - hirundo 8y ago
      I wonder if there's a way to surgically implant a GPS transmitter so that they a) can't take it out with a high risk of dying and b) can be tracked by satellite. I suspect that the battery would be the big problem. On the one hand, if we're gonna do surgery on someone to surveil them hopefully it would be reserved for people actually convicted of a violent crime. On the other hand, I'd very possibly want the surgery myself if I thought the alternative was spending months in jail awaiting trial.
      - jakelazaroff 8y ago
        Compulsory surgically-implanted surveillance transmitters after being charged with a crime seems… extremely dystopian?
llamataboot 8y ago
Bail funds have emerged in many cities to help get people out of jail while they await their trial. If you are interested (and hopefully appalled) by how many people are locked in cages in the United States without being convicted of anything simply because they don't have the money to post bail, please find one and donate to it. Your money can keep working to get many people out of jail long after you donate. https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory https://www.immigrantbailfund.org/about https://www.immigrantbailfund.org/about https://bailproject.org/ https://bailproject.org/
- LanceH 8y ago
  I served on a jury where the guy was in jail for 3 days short of six months. He ended up being convicted on a charge which carries a maximum of 6 months. He almost certainly wouldn't have received 6 months (if any time at all), so inability to pay bail was the greater crime.
rb808 8y ago
I'd like to know if anyone can run and start a new life somewhere else. Is it possible? I suspect Bail is an anachronism in these modern times. 100 years ago you could jump on a train and virtually disappear, never be seen again. Now cops can track people's phone to see exactly where they are at any time of the day.
- jandrese 8y ago
  If someone really wants to run they can still do so, but the story you hear from everybody who does it is that it's not worth it. You spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder and working petty jobs for cash and living in squalor because the nice places check ID. You also can't contact friends and family anymore. It's a sucky life.
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    I suspect Whitey Bulger preferred being on the run to the alternative. If someone decides "it's not worth it" and wants to stop running, all they need to do is turn themselves in. Their revealed preferences suggest that they prefer being on the run.
    - lurquer 8y ago
      In some cases, once you flee/escape/skip-bail you will face additional charges (as well as likely getting a stiffer sentence for the underlying crime.) The miserable life of being on the run might not have been worth the original threat being faced, but, regrettably, it may be worth the original threat + the new threat. That's why every so often governments will have amnesty-like programs where you are able to turn yourself in with no extra consequences if you have a warrant. Or, for that matter, register for citizenship or legal status without fear of facing the legal consequences for the original illegal entry or overstay of visa.
- wgerard 8y ago
  Eh, while that's theoretically true, nobody's gonna invest the kind of resources you're talking about to catch someone accused of e.g. petty larceny. Though I get your point is more about crimes that would, well, be worth trying to disappear over, still worth pointing out that you can effectively "disappear" across state/country lines depending on the severity of your crime.
ars 8y ago
"Consider two defendants with similar backgrounds who were accused of a nonviolent property crime or misdemeanor. By the luck of the draw, one faced a lenient judge and was released, and the other got a different judge who set an unaffordable bail amount The detained arrestee was more likely to appear in court for his trial. But he was also more likely to be convicted." OR The Judge knew what he was doing in setting a higher bail for the one who was convicted. This whole narrative hinges on the study authors knowing more than the Judge what a proper level of bail is - despite not actually being there.
- jakelazaroff 8y ago
  The intention of bail is to ensure that defendants who are not jailed show up to trial, not to prevent guilty suspects from being free before their conviction.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
I wish we would focus more on reweaving our tattered social fabric so people can access housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently. We also need to make it easier for parents to put their kids first. From what I gather, money spent on preschool reduces money spent on prison down the line as just one example of the direct and known connection between how we treat our kids and crime statistics. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to address problems with our prisons and courts, etc. But I don't like the general trend in the world to improve fire fighting practices without doing fire prevention while frequently putting out the fire with gasoline, so to speak. "Fire fighting" gets you hailed as a hero. "Fire prevention" tends to be dismissed as "You didn't really do anything. You just got lucky." Humans are super bad at counting the disasters that didn't happen, but should/would have. So "fire fighting" is more attractive, "sexy" and heroic. But it's a really sick system that actively creates problems in order to give a few people the role of "hero" on the backs of the many victims of the system. And I would very much like to see less of that.
- cannabisfarmer 8y ago
  You should be a politician, I wonder if you are doing something in that direction? You've very good understanding of what needs to be done and who are affected.
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  This is brilliant and very well put. Education, strong families, reducing inequality, communities, all do wonders for people more than 'fixing the bail systems'. Its like endlessly troubleshooting bugs in a software program vs building it properly.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Its like endlessly troubleshooting bugs in a software program vs building it properly. I like the programming analogy. Very apropos for HN.
- ams6110 8y ago
  But why is our social fabric tattered and just what is this social fabric you refer to? From my perspective, people accessing housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently has never happened, at least not in the USA. Things are much better now than 100 years ago, at least in terms of the existence of programs to help those in poverty. Before the "great society" programs there was pretty much only family and private/religious charity, otherwise the poor were on their own. Those were the days when you had 2 or three generations living in the same house -- out of necessity, not choice. Maybe medical care wasn't so expensive in those days, but it consisted of a doctor with a few basic instruments in a hand-carried leather bag. Not exactly a big difference-maker most of the time.
mrnobody_67 8y ago
I really like the Bail Project - https://www.ted.com/talks/robin_steinberg_what_if_we_ended_the_injustice_of_bail?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/robin_steinberg_what_if_we_ended_t...
drilldrive 8y ago
Cash bail is a terrible system, but not having it is worse. At least from what I understand, the states removing cash bail end up having the judges keep much more people in jail, as suddenly everybody is a flight risk.
- richardhod 8y ago
  This is a false dichotomy. There is non-cash bail too, and other systems of encouraging or ensuring people attend court.
  - drilldrive 8y ago
    Of course there are other options, but nothing gets people to show up quite like money does. I looked a fair bit and unfortunately have not found any statistics on holding rates before and after bail reform in the states doing so, neither have I found flight rates before and after, so if anybody could clear the air here I would greatly appreciate it.
andrewla 8y ago
I'm surprised that one of the simplest solutions hasn't been tried. Bail bondsmen are restricted by statute on how much they can charge; we should at least consider lowering the rate from 10% to something much lower (1-2%?) and putting tools like follow-up text messages, etc., in the hands of these agencies. It's not ideal but it is in their best interest to ensure that their clients show up in court rather than have to chase them down.
- philwelch 8y ago
  I would be surprised if there's anything preventing bail bondsmen from sending text messages to their clients. I mean, there's nothing preventing them from physically apprehending their suspects after they skip bail, so sending a text message is definitely within their means. The problem with lowering the maximum rate is that this would put high-risk suspects in jail since they wouldn't even have the choice of making bail. Which is the same problem with abolishing cash bail. With cash bail, if someone's a higher risk, the judge can set a higher level of bail in case there's a bondsman willing to stick his neck out for him.
- brett40324 8y ago
  2% of a bond is laughable. A lot of bonds for misdemeanors are 500 or 1000 usd. So someone could bail out for 5 or 10 bucks! A more serious crime with a 10,000 bond, at 2%, one could get out for 200. I have never ever heard of anyone getting a text from a bail bondsman. If you dont show, you break your bond agreement, and get arrested on a warrant for failure to appear!
cik 8y ago
Cathy O'Neill wrote a terrific book a couple of years back called 'Weapons of Math Destruction'. It's a must read for those of us in this field - and generally a great eye opener. It would behoove us all to think about the consequences of the algorithms we're working on - much like this article.
chaoticmass 8y ago
>The study found that being held in jail while awaiting trial also makes it more likely that, two to four years after an initial arrest, you will be engaged in criminal behavior or unemployed. Correlation vs causation, yadda yadda
- michaericalribo 8y ago
  Thankfully, there’s more to publishing in top journals than ‘yadda yadda.’ Instrumental variables allow for statements about causality, which is exactly the statistical tool the authors used.
kazinator 8y ago
> In itself, an inability to pay bail after being arrested makes it more likely that you will be convicted of that offense, That could be, at least in part, due to inability to post bail being correlated with actually, like, being guilty. That and being unsophisticated and without a lawyer. > The implications of the two studies are powerful and troubling. Being behind bars while awaiting trial had profound negative repercussions, and they were borne disproportionately by low-income people and by black people. For pete's sake, and the umpteenth time, correlation doesn't imply cause and effect.
dczx 8y ago
John Arnold’s Artificial Intelligence Tool is systematically tricking judges to profit off criminals and unsuspecting taxpaying citizens. John Arnold started as a non profit foundation, after deceiving cities to use their “Machine Learning”, they incorporated as an LLC anticipating profits using good unsuspecting judges as pawns. https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/laura-and-john-arnold-foundation-to-restructure-as-llc https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/laura-and-john-arnol... After selling his Artificial Intelligence Tool to Washington D.C. there has been a 227% surge in crimes. “We have witnessed the tragic impact that a climate of hate and division can cause. The FBI report highlights how communities across DC must continue to confront intolerance and bigotry, and continue to work together to build and maintain an inclusive and welcoming city” – Anti-Defamation League https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/11/14/hate-crimes-are-up-62-percent-in-dc/ https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/11/14/hate-crimes-are-up-... The NAACP, ACLU, MIT and 100 other organizations panicking as John Arnold pushes his racist and secret machine learning algorithm to decide who goes to jail, “More than 100 civil rights and community-based organizations, signed a statement urging against the use of risk assessment.” https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612775/algorithms-criminal-justice-ai/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612775/algorithms-crimina... Criminal Justice is a human element, that needs to focus on humans deciding who goes to jail while we address real issues such as Community Development and Prison Reform. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/justice-and-prison-reform/prison-reform-and-alternatives-to-imprisonment.html https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/justice-and-prison-reform/pri...

108 points by rafaelc 8y ago

elicash 8y ago

There shouldn't be fees of ANY kind in the justice system.

mLuby 8y ago
Exactly. Justice is a public concern and therefore should be entirely funded by taxes. The moment incentives other than serving justice are introduced (money, lawyer win rate, etc), the system is perverted.
dumbfounder 8y ago
Strictly speaking it isn't a fee. If you have all of the money for your bail you give it up but you get all of it back when you show up court. If you use a bail bondsman that's who charges you the fee. They are basically giving you a loan, and then they are on the hook to make sure you show up.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  I guess I'm confused to why a system needs to have bail bondsmen - isn't the idea behind bail being something you can possibly give up but want to get back? Isn't bail bonds something you can't afford? Even just paying the fee might be too much for people, but the alternative is to wait in jail an unjust amount of time.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    Most people don't have enough cash on hand to pay any amount of bail that would serve as an incentive for them to get back--especially not most people who get arrested on criminal complaints. The bail bondsman actually provides another service to the court: he has the legal power and financial incentive to apprehend a suspect and return them to the custody of the court if you skip bail. In other words, instead of the county sheriff having to worry about apprehending everyone who skips bail, they effectively outsource it to the bail bondsman. The bail bondsman thus has an incentive to make sure you don't skip bail, or failing that, to make sure that he can apprehend you--and these risks are priced into the effective rate of interest on the bail bond. (Most "bounty hunters" in the US are just bail bondsmen trying to recover their suspect, or somebody working for or contracted by the same.) It's a fairly underrated and underappreciated market mechanism where the entire problem of "making sure people show up to court if they are on trial" can be handled by a competitive market, usually more efficiently or humanely than most local governments would do themselves. But it involves money changing hands, which gets certain people all up in a lather about abolishing it.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      > But it involves money changing hands, which gets certain people all up in a lather about abolishing it. If you're found innocent is the bail fee rescinded?
      - philwelch 8y ago
        It isn't--which means that you do end up having to pay a decent amount of money if you get arrested and want to post bail even with a bondsman. A bail bond is basically a secured loan, and the bondsman's profit comes from what's effectively an interest payment on that loan. "People who just got arrested" are sort of a high-risk category of borrowers, so it can be a decent amount of money. The bond is secured by your person--i.e. if the bondsman can apprehend you and take you to county jail, he gets his money back--but it's expensive and risky to do that.
        SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        So an innocent person who's unable to afford bail either has to wait in jail for their court date or pay a fee for their freedom? That doesn't seem inhumane at all?
        philwelch 8y ago
        It's imperfect, but no perfect solution exists. If you're considered a low flight risk, you could be released under your own recognizance or released at a low enough level of bail that you can afford to pay the bondsman's rate. If you're considered a very high flight risk, you stay in jail. Cash bail is for the cases in the middle, and if you either abolish it or replace it with something less effective or efficient, more people will be considered "high risk" and denied bail. If you can't afford to pay a bail bondsman, that means that the court has deemed you a high enough flight risk to require a high amount of bail, and it also means that every bail bondsman you meet also deems you a high enough risk that you don't get an affordable rate on the bail. By definition, that's a situation where literally nobody actually thinks you're actually going to show up to court of your own free will, and in that situation, there's no solution that keeps you out of jail.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

Someone1234 8y ago

This is a very interesting data driven article that will make you depressed. I recommend it. > Technological solutions, like electronic anklets that monitor an individual’s whereabouts, are another option. Even sending text-message reminders to show up in court makes it more likely that a defendant will do so. All these options are cheaper than incarceration. I hope this gains popularity. Cash bail discriminates against the poor and is unfairly applied (see article); using technological tracking, check-ins, and similar might be a fairer solution that can be applied uniformly. I would like to say on a more general note: The influence of money in US criminal justice seems to corrupt everything it touches. From prisons, to parole, to representation, to sentencing, and beyond. Everything we can do to get money's influence out of criminal justice we should do.

candiodari 8y ago
The article also proves things that people were unwilling to accept in this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19253333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19253333 There people always made the point that human judges making just decisions based on fairness. Well, clearly not. Algorithms would be another, better way to know exactly what makes the determination if a person should be released awaiting trial or not.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  >Algorithms would be another, better way to know exactly what makes the determination if a person should be released awaiting trial or not. Isn't it a source of constant concern that the algorithms that end up being used in law enforcement inevitably end up employing the same stereotypes that their flesh and blood counterparts have?
  - netsharc 8y ago
    But wouldn't algorithms be easy to examine? At the least you can test it with similar circumstances and modify the "race" variable and see if the results are consistent or different. Humans have many self-image protective layers when questioned (e.g. "I'm not racist, I have black friends!"), Bbut hopefully algorithms are more transparent...

m-p-3 8y ago

The justice system in the US is skewed towards profit. No real justice can prevail if the system favors money above all.

mnm1 8y ago

With the ubiquitous tracking technology we have these days, why are we still putting innocent people in jail? It's barbaric and unjust. Give them a GPS bracelet and let them go home or wherever they want. Or have we given up completely on the "innocent until proven guilty" idea?

sokoloff 8y ago
Suppose someone is accused of a mass shooting, murdering their neighbor, beating up their spouse, carjacking, or armed robbery. Right then, off you go; just wear this bracelet... Doesn't seem particularly reasonable to not incarcerate anyone before trial.
- tdb7893 8y ago
  I think it makes sense to jail people who are an immediate harm to others like serial killers and some spousal abusers. Jailing for even things like armed robbery and carjacking seem often unnecessary if you can track people, very few people will keep carjacking and armed robbing while under surveillance like that.
  - hirundo 8y ago
    I wonder if there's a way to surgically implant a GPS transmitter so that they a) can't take it out with a high risk of dying and b) can be tracked by satellite. I suspect that the battery would be the big problem. On the one hand, if we're gonna do surgery on someone to surveil them hopefully it would be reserved for people actually convicted of a violent crime. On the other hand, I'd very possibly want the surgery myself if I thought the alternative was spending months in jail awaiting trial.
    - jakelazaroff 8y ago
      Compulsory surgically-implanted surveillance transmitters after being charged with a crime seems… extremely dystopian?

llamataboot 8y ago

Bail funds have emerged in many cities to help get people out of jail while they await their trial. If you are interested (and hopefully appalled) by how many people are locked in cages in the United States without being convicted of anything simply because they don't have the money to post bail, please find one and donate to it. Your money can keep working to get many people out of jail long after you donate. https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory https://www.immigrantbailfund.org/about https://www.immigrantbailfund.org/about https://bailproject.org/ https://bailproject.org/

LanceH 8y ago
I served on a jury where the guy was in jail for 3 days short of six months. He ended up being convicted on a charge which carries a maximum of 6 months. He almost certainly wouldn't have received 6 months (if any time at all), so inability to pay bail was the greater crime.

rb808 8y ago

I'd like to know if anyone can run and start a new life somewhere else. Is it possible? I suspect Bail is an anachronism in these modern times. 100 years ago you could jump on a train and virtually disappear, never be seen again. Now cops can track people's phone to see exactly where they are at any time of the day.

jandrese 8y ago
If someone really wants to run they can still do so, but the story you hear from everybody who does it is that it's not worth it. You spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder and working petty jobs for cash and living in squalor because the nice places check ID. You also can't contact friends and family anymore. It's a sucky life.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  I suspect Whitey Bulger preferred being on the run to the alternative. If someone decides "it's not worth it" and wants to stop running, all they need to do is turn themselves in. Their revealed preferences suggest that they prefer being on the run.
  - lurquer 8y ago
    In some cases, once you flee/escape/skip-bail you will face additional charges (as well as likely getting a stiffer sentence for the underlying crime.) The miserable life of being on the run might not have been worth the original threat being faced, but, regrettably, it may be worth the original threat + the new threat. That's why every so often governments will have amnesty-like programs where you are able to turn yourself in with no extra consequences if you have a warrant. Or, for that matter, register for citizenship or legal status without fear of facing the legal consequences for the original illegal entry or overstay of visa.
wgerard 8y ago
Eh, while that's theoretically true, nobody's gonna invest the kind of resources you're talking about to catch someone accused of e.g. petty larceny. Though I get your point is more about crimes that would, well, be worth trying to disappear over, still worth pointing out that you can effectively "disappear" across state/country lines depending on the severity of your crime.

ars 8y ago

"Consider two defendants with similar backgrounds who were accused of a nonviolent property crime or misdemeanor. By the luck of the draw, one faced a lenient judge and was released, and the other got a different judge who set an unaffordable bail amount The detained arrestee was more likely to appear in court for his trial. But he was also more likely to be convicted." OR The Judge knew what he was doing in setting a higher bail for the one who was convicted. This whole narrative hinges on the study authors knowing more than the Judge what a proper level of bail is - despite not actually being there.

jakelazaroff 8y ago
The intention of bail is to ensure that defendants who are not jailed show up to trial, not to prevent guilty suspects from being free before their conviction.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

I wish we would focus more on reweaving our tattered social fabric so people can access housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently. We also need to make it easier for parents to put their kids first. From what I gather, money spent on preschool reduces money spent on prison down the line as just one example of the direct and known connection between how we treat our kids and crime statistics. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to address problems with our prisons and courts, etc. But I don't like the general trend in the world to improve fire fighting practices without doing fire prevention while frequently putting out the fire with gasoline, so to speak. "Fire fighting" gets you hailed as a hero. "Fire prevention" tends to be dismissed as "You didn't really do anything. You just got lucky." Humans are super bad at counting the disasters that didn't happen, but should/would have. So "fire fighting" is more attractive, "sexy" and heroic. But it's a really sick system that actively creates problems in order to give a few people the role of "hero" on the backs of the many victims of the system. And I would very much like to see less of that.

cannabisfarmer 8y ago
You should be a politician, I wonder if you are doing something in that direction? You've very good understanding of what needs to be done and who are affected.
nickthemagicman 8y ago
This is brilliant and very well put. Education, strong families, reducing inequality, communities, all do wonders for people more than 'fixing the bail systems'. Its like endlessly troubleshooting bugs in a software program vs building it properly.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Its like endlessly troubleshooting bugs in a software program vs building it properly. I like the programming analogy. Very apropos for HN.
ams6110 8y ago
But why is our social fabric tattered and just what is this social fabric you refer to? From my perspective, people accessing housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently has never happened, at least not in the USA. Things are much better now than 100 years ago, at least in terms of the existence of programs to help those in poverty. Before the "great society" programs there was pretty much only family and private/religious charity, otherwise the poor were on their own. Those were the days when you had 2 or three generations living in the same house -- out of necessity, not choice. Maybe medical care wasn't so expensive in those days, but it consisted of a doctor with a few basic instruments in a hand-carried leather bag. Not exactly a big difference-maker most of the time.

mrnobody_67 8y ago

I really like the Bail Project - https://www.ted.com/talks/robin_steinberg_what_if_we_ended_the_injustice_of_bail?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/robin_steinberg_what_if_we_ended_t...

drilldrive 8y ago

Cash bail is a terrible system, but not having it is worse. At least from what I understand, the states removing cash bail end up having the judges keep much more people in jail, as suddenly everybody is a flight risk.

richardhod 8y ago
This is a false dichotomy. There is non-cash bail too, and other systems of encouraging or ensuring people attend court.
- drilldrive 8y ago
  Of course there are other options, but nothing gets people to show up quite like money does. I looked a fair bit and unfortunately have not found any statistics on holding rates before and after bail reform in the states doing so, neither have I found flight rates before and after, so if anybody could clear the air here I would greatly appreciate it.

andrewla 8y ago

I'm surprised that one of the simplest solutions hasn't been tried. Bail bondsmen are restricted by statute on how much they can charge; we should at least consider lowering the rate from 10% to something much lower (1-2%?) and putting tools like follow-up text messages, etc., in the hands of these agencies. It's not ideal but it is in their best interest to ensure that their clients show up in court rather than have to chase them down.

philwelch 8y ago
I would be surprised if there's anything preventing bail bondsmen from sending text messages to their clients. I mean, there's nothing preventing them from physically apprehending their suspects after they skip bail, so sending a text message is definitely within their means. The problem with lowering the maximum rate is that this would put high-risk suspects in jail since they wouldn't even have the choice of making bail. Which is the same problem with abolishing cash bail. With cash bail, if someone's a higher risk, the judge can set a higher level of bail in case there's a bondsman willing to stick his neck out for him.
brett40324 8y ago
2% of a bond is laughable. A lot of bonds for misdemeanors are 500 or 1000 usd. So someone could bail out for 5 or 10 bucks! A more serious crime with a 10,000 bond, at 2%, one could get out for 200. I have never ever heard of anyone getting a text from a bail bondsman. If you dont show, you break your bond agreement, and get arrested on a warrant for failure to appear!

cik 8y ago

Cathy O'Neill wrote a terrific book a couple of years back called 'Weapons of Math Destruction'. It's a must read for those of us in this field - and generally a great eye opener. It would behoove us all to think about the consequences of the algorithms we're working on - much like this article.

chaoticmass 8y ago

>The study found that being held in jail while awaiting trial also makes it more likely that, two to four years after an initial arrest, you will be engaged in criminal behavior or unemployed. Correlation vs causation, yadda yadda

michaericalribo 8y ago
Thankfully, there’s more to publishing in top journals than ‘yadda yadda.’ Instrumental variables allow for statements about causality, which is exactly the statistical tool the authors used.

kazinator 8y ago

> In itself, an inability to pay bail after being arrested makes it more likely that you will be convicted of that offense, That could be, at least in part, due to inability to post bail being correlated with actually, like, being guilty. That and being unsophisticated and without a lawyer. > The implications of the two studies are powerful and troubling. Being behind bars while awaiting trial had profound negative repercussions, and they were borne disproportionately by low-income people and by black people. For pete's sake, and the umpteenth time, correlation doesn't imply cause and effect.

dczx 8y ago

John Arnold’s Artificial Intelligence Tool is systematically tricking judges to profit off criminals and unsuspecting taxpaying citizens. John Arnold started as a non profit foundation, after deceiving cities to use their “Machine Learning”, they incorporated as an LLC anticipating profits using good unsuspecting judges as pawns. https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/laura-and-john-arnold-foundation-to-restructure-as-llc https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/laura-and-john-arnol... After selling his Artificial Intelligence Tool to Washington D.C. there has been a 227% surge in crimes. “We have witnessed the tragic impact that a climate of hate and division can cause. The FBI report highlights how communities across DC must continue to confront intolerance and bigotry, and continue to work together to build and maintain an inclusive and welcoming city” – Anti-Defamation League https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/11/14/hate-crimes-are-up-62-percent-in-dc/ https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/11/14/hate-crimes-are-up-... The NAACP, ACLU, MIT and 100 other organizations panicking as John Arnold pushes his racist and secret machine learning algorithm to decide who goes to jail, “More than 100 civil rights and community-based organizations, signed a statement urging against the use of risk assessment.” https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612775/algorithms-criminal-justice-ai/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612775/algorithms-crimina... Criminal Justice is a human element, that needs to focus on humans deciding who goes to jail while we address real issues such as Community Development and Prison Reform. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/justice-and-prison-reform/prison-reform-and-alternatives-to-imprisonment.html https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/justice-and-prison-reform/pri...