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Absolutely. It’s one of the most cruel and predatory systems that I can imagine — regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your

• throwaway17_17 6y ago
  One of the only ‘pro’ arguments that can be made in a sensible manner is to discuss the amount of people not incarcerated who do not appear for court. It is not a great argument, but it is a factor to be considered. In theory, bail, via a bondsman, is an amount of money that will Ensure that the bail-bondsman will go track down the defendant in the event they do not appear for court as required. That said, I don’t think the argument is persuasive enough to result in the system in place in most US jurisdictions.
  • TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    What? It looks like your proposing someone pay someone else to do a particular role. What does that have to do with cash bail? I'm confused.
    • creato 6y ago
      The point of bail is to put the defendant (or someone close to them) on the hook to pay the bail if the defendant doesn't show up in court. Bail bondsmen offer a different deal: pay us a fee (smaller than the bond), we'll pay your bail. If you don't show up to court, the bondsmen loses the bail bond unless they can go find the defendant and bring them into court. I think maybe the thing that should most change in this system is that practice of bail bondsmen/bounty hunting is made illegal. That should lower bonds significantly, and maybe enable bail bonds to function more as they were originally intended. I have no experience with any part of this, this is just my understanding.
      • TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
        Ohhhh, I see now. Thank you.
      • Larrikin 6y ago
        Why are we contracting out to a private business an actual sensible thing for the police to do? Law enforcement tracks down people with warrants why not issue warrants for people who skip out on court?
        • ithkuil 6y ago
          Looks like the system has been designed in ancient times when society was quite different
      • x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
        But that doesn't fix anything. People still have to shell out for the bail, and recovery of the prisoner is left up to a private entity (but if they get picked up by a cop on a warrant they still get sent to jail). I'm not really sure there is a way to keep whatever "good" people may be seeing in the system without all the bad parts coming along with it.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• 8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago
  > That is fucking crazy. That sounds like a Blade-Runner-esque dystopia. And it’s our reality. From everything I read, it's rather scary to be poor in America, especially if you have to deal with the judicial or medical system.
  • ars 6y ago
    > or medical system. Poor people get medicaid, which is actually pretty decent insurance since it's private (non government) insurance, paid for by the government. It's actually the middle class that has it hard: Too rich for medicaid, too poor to easily afford the deductibles. (I know this is an unpopular opinion, but things were better before Obamacare - deductibles were much much lower.)
    • ComputerGuru 6y ago
      Not just deductibles, my self-insured premiums have almost tripled since ACA.
    • ithkuil 6y ago
      (non american here) so what was the problem ACA was designed to solve? I assume there must have been another group of people who are not poor enough but not middle class enough? Or something else? I care about your unpopular opinion since the popular ones are easier to find
      • dragonwriter 6y ago
        The ACA addressed numerous issues, some of the more notable ones: (1) it included a very significant expansion of Medicaid eligibility. (2) for people just outside of Medicaid eligibility, it includes public subsidies for exchange-listed plans. (3) it banned a number of practices which made insurance either inaccessible or illusory, most notably preexisting condition exclusions (and the associated practice of looking for an indicator of preexisting condition and using it as pretext to cancel the policy when someone was diagnosed with an expensive-to-care-for condition), but also cancel-and-refund practices, and lifetime benefit limits.
• js2 6y ago
  > I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for. There's a pretty good movie called Midnight Run that would need a new premise without cash bail. Other than that, yeah, no argument.
• jennyyang 6y ago
  The conviction rate is very high, upwards of 85% in some states. So it's not like large swaths of completely innocent people are being held in jails. I'm okay with pre-trial incarceration as long as everyone gets treated equally. Since they aren't, I think non-cash bail is a good idea, with strict requirements to check in with an officer, etc. If they don't meet their appointments or break the terms of their bail, I'm also okay to see them incarcerated pre-trial. However, there needs to be some provision to make sure that they don't stay in jail longer than what their offense would have garnered. If someone is in jail pre-trial for half the median time an average punishment if they were found guilty, then the charges should be immediately dropped. This should give prosecutors more incentive to get their acts together and have a trial in a reasonable amount of time.
  • javajosh 6y ago
    Not an expert, but I imagine the conviction rate is high because prosecutors make it the path-of-least resistance to freedom. Competent legal assistance is expensive, and building a defense is also expensive and time-consuming. So I wouldn't say that an 85% conviction rate implies anything about the innocence of pre-trial prisoners. Moreover, I think it is dangerous to do so, lest it be a circular argument: why did you arrest him? He was guilty. Why was he guilty? Because I arrested him.
    • refurb 6y ago
      It would be interesting to see data on how many charges are dropped. You are correct that cases are submitted to the DA, they look at all the evidence and decide whether or not they will prosecute. A big part of that is "can I even get a conviction?" So you'd expect a relatively high conviction rate just based on the fact that cases where conviction is unlikely are filtered out before they ever get to trial.
      • throwaway17_17 6y ago
        The data, as amazed by organizations like the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, tends to show that prosecutors accept upwards of 80% of charges submitted for prosecution by law enforcement and that grand jury’s will indict upwards of 95% of cases presented to them. [1] The common phrasing amongst lawyers is that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich and that a DA will accept as many charges at the highest level they can and that they’ll see what might stick later. 1 - Those grand jury numbers are why the Breonna Taylor non-indictment is so angering
• creato 6y ago
  > regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status? Bail is in fact supposed to be a function of your financial status, and the severity of the crime. What do you suggest as an alternative to bail bonds? Maybe ankle monitors for those awaiting trial? I think maybe the thing that should most change is outlawing bail bondsmen. It seems like they distort the market for bail bonds significantly and may be causing some/most of the problems with bail, and at the same time this system empowers private individuals with duties that should be the responsibility of the state (finding and detaining people who didn't show up to court).
  • alkonaut 6y ago
    > What do you suggest as an alternative to bail bonds? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but cash bails are pretty rare globally, and the normal way of going about this is: if you are dangerous/risk interfering with the investigation/a flight risk (Meaning not just "not show up" but actually leave the country, such as foreign citizens), then you await trial in jail. If you are not, then you don't.
  • Retric 6y ago
    Putting people out on their own recognizance works in most cases. The rare exception of a serious flight risk simply doesn’t get bail anyway.
    • nmfisher 6y ago
      > Putting people out on their own recognizance works in most cases. Has this been studied?
      • nobody9999 6y ago
        >> Putting people out on their own recognizance works in most cases. >Has this been studied? Actually, it has. In fact, the linked essay goes into some significant detail about it. Perhaps you might consider reading it.
• bawolff 6y ago
  Pro side: I don't see anything wrong with requiring a surety to ensure that people awaiting trial don't flee, in principle. It makes sure people are less likely to run away while at the same time doesnt force them to sit in jail while they await trial. It should be relative to your ability to pay, and the commercial bondsman industry seems messed up, but those are implementation details and not the core of the system. *as an interesting note, in Canada its illegal to be a commercial bondsmand - https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-139.html#docCont https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-139.ht... i think that helps make the bail system be much more sane.
  • rallison 6y ago
    If the downsides weren't so significant, then sure, the pro side makes sense. But the downsides are incredibly significant - that you have huge numbers of people who spend time in jail or spend money for a bail bond, who are indeed innocent, is a sign of a fundamentally broken system. > It should be relative to your ability to pay Sure, this would help, but I suspect it would still end up often unjustly impacting those who are poorer and innocent. If people don't show up for trial, charge them for that then. But pre trial, while presumed innocent, aside from unique high flight risk scenarios? The bail system is terrible, and fundamentally unfair. Edit: to be clear, making it relative to ability to pay, and eliminating commercial bail bondsmen would be a big step in the right direction. I still think that's rife with issues, but it would be significantly better than what we have now.
    • bawolff 6y ago
      Fundamentally the idea of a surety doesn't work for the really poor. If you don't have anything to put up as collateral, you don't have anything to loose by skipping bail. The flip side of that, is if you are really poor you have less resources to use making your escape, so maybe the bail system is less needed. But just because the bail system doesn't work well for poor people doesn't mean its also broken for middle class people.
      • alkonaut 6y ago
• ars 6y ago
  > your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status? Isn't bail adjusted based on the persons financial status? Unlike road fines and the like, it's one of the few things that do take into account a persons wealth.
  • nobody9999 6y ago
    >Isn't bail adjusted based on the persons financial status? Is it? I'm unaware of any evidence of that. If you could share some with me, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
    • throwaway17_17 6y ago
      Almost every state has factors required By statute to be Considered when setting bail. One of those factors is, almost always, the financial ability of the defendant to give bond. Doesn’t mean it is factored appropriately, but the law states that it should matter.
  • kelnos 6y ago
    There are quite a few people who get caught in the system for whom any amount of bail would be an unreasonable financial hardship. Seems that if they really means-tested bail, they'd come up with "zero" for a lot people, and would likely just require they stay jailed pre-trial.
• hugh-avherald 6y ago
  It cuts both ways though. The surety's financial resources are taken into account by the bail decision maker. If the accused does not have sufficient means, other conditions may be imposed. But if no other conditions are available, the bail decision maker may be obliged to refuse bail.
• rangoon626 6y ago
  Yeah! And another thing they should have let Derek Chauvin out of jail without bail too.
• kepler1 6y ago
  ...regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status... Are you f'ing kidding me? Regardless of what crime you commit, you should be able to go home and see your family? What ridiculous world are you advocating for here? Do you even think about the implications of your ideas?
  • aqme28 6y ago
    Just to be clear-- you're arguing for the person's financial status to determine whether or not they see their family, not their crime. OP was saying that your financial status should not matter.
  • serf 6y ago
    >What ridiculous world are you advocating for here? Do you even think about the implications of your ideas? well, given that really atrocious crimes rarely have bail set, it seems as if the 'world being advocated' by the parent here is a world in which the punishment for your crime is not scaled by the amount of money you are capable of coming up with. The perpetrator of a bail-set crime should not have less practical punishment for the crime simply because they paid their way out of part of the punishment.
    • nobody9999 6y ago
      >The perpetrator of a bail-set crime should not have less practical punishment for the crime simply because they paid their way out of part of the punishment. Except pretrial detention, which is where bail comes in, is done prior to adjudication (plea bargain, trial, etc.), not after. As such, the folks we're talking about haven't been convicted of anything. And if, as is supposed to be the case, that one is innocent until proven guilty, you're advocating for innocent people to be punished. Is that actually your stance on this, or were you not understanding the situation?
  • pjc50 6y ago
    sigh not the only criterion; people credibly accused of violent crimes or deemed a risk to the public should not be granted bail at all. "You can beat your wife and then go back to your family if and only if you can borrow many thousands of dollars from a sketchy private agency" is also a stupid system.
• nickff 6y ago
  To be clear, it's not 3 in 5 incarcerated people, it's 3 of 5 in jail. Jail is where you go after being charged, but before conviction, or if you're convicted of a misdemeanor (less than 1 year sentence). Unfortunately, there is an incentive for local prosecutors to convict people of offences with sentences longer than a year, so as to have them moved to state prisons, but that's a somewhat separate issue.
• dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Today, three out of five people in U.S. jails have not been convicted of a crime. While its not perfectly divided this way, it's worth noting that the US has different things called “jails” and “prisons” and that the former are mostly for pretrial and short-sentence incarceration and mostly run by local governments, while the latter in state systems are almost exclusively for post-conviction felony sentences, while they are used for all purposes in the federal system. This is important, because while the number of pre-trial confinements in the US is way too high, if you fail to understand that distinction statistics about the proportion of jail inmates that are on pre-trial confinement may be grossly misleading. There is a graphic overview of the whole detention picture here: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html
  • jstanley 6y ago
    OK, but you can't really argue your way around: > This amounts to nearly half a million people sitting in jail each day, despite being presumed innocent under the law
    • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      > This amounts to nearly half a million people sitting in jail each day, despite being presumed innocent under the law Ok, but it's not the same half million on any given day. A huge number of those people got picked up the night before and will be out (on bail or otherwise) by the end of the business day. Incarcerating people is expensive. Even if getting them out doesn't involve the state getting an interest free loan the state still has an incentive to get them out. In functional jurisdictions the turnover is high. I know that there's a litany of exceptions for the authoritarian (and therefore more inclined to lock people up for no good reason) and well moneyed (and have the money to do it) jurisdictions in the Boston-DC corridor (and please nobody construe this as me giving the Southeast or west coast a pass, they suck too but do it differently) but the underlying problem there is societal. If you reform bail the well moneyed authoritarian jurisdictions are still well moneyed and still authoritarians and will simply spend that money using the system to screw people some other way.
• american_aurora 6y ago
  > It’s also one of those policies that I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for. I have always assumed that the goal was to decrease flight risk for people (from the perspective of the court), thereby allowing larger swaths of people to be released pre-trial.
• londons_explore 6y ago
  By not going out on bail, you get to reduce your sentence by 'time served' right? That means, if you think there's a good chance you're going to be convicted, it might actually make more sense not to post bail. Then you'll end up released at an earlier date. If you've already lost your job and can't afford rent anywhere, it might also make sense - getting a job and renting a place are hard to do, and to do all that only to later be convicted and sent to prison and end up defaulting on your rental contract and being declared bankrupt - might not be the best move for your post-prison prospects.
• madeofpalk 6y ago
  > It’s also one of those policies that I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for. Its because people (generally) believe bad people should be punished, and good people do not get arrested.
• roenxi 6y ago
  > regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status? The money is presumably to cover the cost of sending someone out to find the accused and drag them to the courthouse. If someone can't afford to pay the bond and then tries to run, I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it. Someone has decided it is easier to simply keep the accused in jail. Assuming they've done the math on costs properly it would make sense. Taxpayers shouldn't be in a position to cover the cost of people running from the law. It is an uncomfortable system that clearly biases in favour of the rich - but the rich are the ones covering the cost of it all so I am comfortable standing up and saying I don't mind if they get special treatment. Wealthy people pay something like half the taxes; it seems reasonable that they can wait for their day in court in comfort. Wealth comes with privileges and they aren't criminals until they are convicted.
  • calt 6y ago
    And thus the cycle of poverty continues and meritocracy descends into hereditary meritocracy, which isn't a meritocracy at all. > I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it. I see that the economic cost of perpetuating economic classes and the economic disruption of confinement without trial far outweigh this taxpayer cost. Taxpayers win when justice prevails. This kind of extreme libertarian mindset just baffles me.
    • roenxi 6y ago
      > I see that the economic cost of perpetuating economic classes and the economic disruption of confinement without trial far outweigh this taxpayer cost. Sure, but in this instance the person you are metaphorically telling that to is the person who is paying half the costs in their capacity as a taxpayer. If there is a scheme that is cheaper than incarceration for 3rd parties and gets everyone to court on time then I'm sure everyone is in favour of it except maybe the bail bondsmen. But the status quo is defensible - "rich people shouldn't be privileged" isn't a sensible argument. They have to get some comfort out of all that money. That is the point of money - to buy comfort. Lots of money = lots of comfort. Many people get rich through exceptionally hard work and it makes sense that they get something out of it. If they can't buy comfort with money then there really isn't much point to it.
• raptor99 6y ago
  For the life of me, I cannot find this statistic or the derivation thereof, in the link that the author of the article gives. The report linked give stats on county and city jails. It would also be interesting to know what the actual conviction rate on this is as well so that we have a clear picture of what is occurring.
• vidarh 6y ago
  The entire US justice system is a dystopia to me. As someone who grew up in Norway, if I somehow found myself on a US jury I'd be had pressed to be able to morally justify voting "guilty" even if the accused stood up in court and committed the crime in front of me, because of the inhumane prison system and length of sentences. It's a system that is fundamentally about satisfying a desire for vengeance at all cost, not about making society better. [I'll add to this that Norway had a pretty brutal prison system too, until a prison reform movement started gaining traction in the 60's. The interesting part is that as it turns out, treating people like humans instead of abusing them tends to reduce re-offending]
• sk2020 6y ago
  So if a guy murders your mom by burning her alive in her stolen car after savagely raping her, your number one concern is that he can see his family and live comfortably before his trial and sentencing? This kind of thinking is the dysfunction you should be worried about. Criminals good. Law enforcement bad. And before bemoaning the plight of some contrived story about a preferred category of citizen being arrested for drugs or whatever, everybody I know whose gone to jail (several) ALL of them did much, much more than they were arrested for. Some were friends. None of them were good people. Judges aren’t robots, either. Bail is assessed by both means and severity of crime. If you’ve never been in a courtroom, you might not know this.