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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

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 If you're found innocent is the bail fee rescinded?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
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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

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