4 ms·

Western Europe doesn't have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don't run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your cur

Western Europe doesn't have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don't run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your current life (house, possessions, career, friends, family, etc) is over. People who actually are flight risks (due to the nature of the crime, extensive assets out-of-country, etc) can be held in jail pending trial, but that's pretty rare. OR consider it this way: How much effort goes into making someone disappear into the witness relocation program? Now consider how much bigger and organized the US government is compared to some drug cartel? The amount of preparation and execution required to evade the US government for any length of time is immense, and beyond the means of almost everybody. In Germany for example, you get a court summons, and if convicted, you get a prison summons with about a month to tie up your affairs. None of this medieval hauling people away in chains BS. Bail might have made sense in the Wild West, when you could just run a few states over with your stuff and start over under a new name, but nowadays a fugitive life cuts you off from everything. And if someone is crazy enough to go that far, a bail bond won't make a lick of difference.

endogui 6y ago
I mostly find your argument convincing, but keep in mind that there is no unitary "US government": most charges are under state law. This means that although the national government can know where you are down to the apartment number, you can be (legally) completely unreachable to the state that has ordered you to trial. The solution may be to just lock up the accused more liberally than in Europe, but I'm curious how Europe handles this problem in the Shengen zone.
- kstenerud 6y ago
  You just extradite them, same as the American states do when someone flees to a different state. I've yet to hear of someone being "untouchable" in another Shengen country. Are American state criminal laws that incompatible with each other?
  - allendoerfer 6y ago
    Since you are the second poster to spell it wrong: It's Schengen.
- isthisnametaken 6y ago
  The European Arrest Warrant sorts a lot of it out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant
jokethrowaway 6y ago
Western Europe barely works. Bringing one data point: my ex landlord wasn't really the owner of the house and was scamming rich landlords who had too many properties to control them properly. He also scammed tenants (eg. Not returning deposits). The London metropolitan police jailed him, plenty of evidence and testimonies. He was released nonetheless, he escaped to Dubai (where he has family), he came back to the UK and opened another real estate company doing the same scam under another name. I fished him using LinkedIn and checking his old LinkedIn contacts. Metropolitan police was aware of everything as I was in touch with a detective. He had the entire story, the new office location of the scammer, the website and photos showing the entire scam repeating itself and dropped the case. The police has zero incentive to do anything about criminals, they just get more funding the worse criminality gets. A bail system is not perfect, but prevents people escaping, or at least collect some money from people who want to escape law. This could be used to compensate victims, but I don't have high hopes for the government ever doing that. If we want to prevent innocents ending up in jail we could just make victimless crimes legal. Weirdly enough, nobody seems to get behind that.
- rusticpenn 6y ago
  The goal is to let some guilty walk free so that innocent are not troubled. There are people who know the weak points of the system, sometimes they will escape, but its worse to have someone innocent of a crime in prison.
- jopsen 6y ago
  The lack of prosecution has more to do with priority than lack of bail. Scams can be hard to prosecute, and the harm inflicted on victims is mostly financial. Personally, I would love to see more internet scammers (spammers in particular) prosecuted, but if I think hard about I can recognize that there might be crimes it more important to investigate.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Money is how people buy food. You need a super strong social safety net to say people don't deserve to buy their own food.
throwaway316943 6y ago
The people who will skip trial and go underground are the reason this system exists. These aren’t professionals with mortgages.
- kstenerud 6y ago
  > These aren’t professionals with mortgages. Really? What kind of people are they?
  - madengr 6y ago
    Mostly blacks between the ages of 15 and 25.
  - FeloniousHam 6y ago
    The kind who can't/won't make a living within the bounds of the law. I've known a few characters personally who have been in and out of jail, and they did not have mortgages or steady jobs that gave them skin in the game of Good Behaviour. None of them were flight risks though.
    - kstenerud 6y ago
      If they're not flight risks and are not able to permanently disappear from the justice system's reach, then they're not the reason the bail system exists.
      - throwaway316943 6y ago
        The main problem isn’t flight or cinemaesque disappearing, it’s simply avoiding arrest and being out in the community reoffending. If you’re busted for dealing meth and get released pending trial and then don’t show you’re probably just out there selling meth again, crashing at a buddy’s place and avoiding getting pulled over.
        kstenerud 6y ago

endogui 6y ago

I mostly find your argument convincing, but keep in mind that there is no unitary "US government": most charges are under state law. This means that although the national government can know where you are down to the apartment number, you can be (legally) completely unreachable to the state that has ordered you to trial. The solution may be to just lock up the accused more liberally than in Europe, but I'm curious how Europe handles this problem in the Shengen zone.

kstenerud 6y ago
You just extradite them, same as the American states do when someone flees to a different state. I've yet to hear of someone being "untouchable" in another Shengen country. Are American state criminal laws that incompatible with each other?
- allendoerfer 6y ago
  Since you are the second poster to spell it wrong: It's Schengen.
isthisnametaken 6y ago
The European Arrest Warrant sorts a lot of it out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant

jokethrowaway 6y ago

Western Europe barely works. Bringing one data point: my ex landlord wasn't really the owner of the house and was scamming rich landlords who had too many properties to control them properly. He also scammed tenants (eg. Not returning deposits). The London metropolitan police jailed him, plenty of evidence and testimonies. He was released nonetheless, he escaped to Dubai (where he has family), he came back to the UK and opened another real estate company doing the same scam under another name. I fished him using LinkedIn and checking his old LinkedIn contacts. Metropolitan police was aware of everything as I was in touch with a detective. He had the entire story, the new office location of the scammer, the website and photos showing the entire scam repeating itself and dropped the case. The police has zero incentive to do anything about criminals, they just get more funding the worse criminality gets. A bail system is not perfect, but prevents people escaping, or at least collect some money from people who want to escape law. This could be used to compensate victims, but I don't have high hopes for the government ever doing that. If we want to prevent innocents ending up in jail we could just make victimless crimes legal. Weirdly enough, nobody seems to get behind that.

rusticpenn 6y ago
The goal is to let some guilty walk free so that innocent are not troubled. There are people who know the weak points of the system, sometimes they will escape, but its worse to have someone innocent of a crime in prison.
jopsen 6y ago
The lack of prosecution has more to do with priority than lack of bail. Scams can be hard to prosecute, and the harm inflicted on victims is mostly financial. Personally, I would love to see more internet scammers (spammers in particular) prosecuted, but if I think hard about I can recognize that there might be crimes it more important to investigate.
- gowld 6y ago
  Money is how people buy food. You need a super strong social safety net to say people don't deserve to buy their own food.

throwaway316943 6y ago

The people who will skip trial and go underground are the reason this system exists. These aren’t professionals with mortgages.

kstenerud 6y ago
> These aren’t professionals with mortgages. Really? What kind of people are they?
- madengr 6y ago
  Mostly blacks between the ages of 15 and 25.
- FeloniousHam 6y ago
  The kind who can't/won't make a living within the bounds of the law. I've known a few characters personally who have been in and out of jail, and they did not have mortgages or steady jobs that gave them skin in the game of Good Behaviour. None of them were flight risks though.
  - kstenerud 6y ago
    If they're not flight risks and are not able to permanently disappear from the justice system's reach, then they're not the reason the bail system exists.
    - throwaway316943 6y ago
      The main problem isn’t flight or cinemaesque disappearing, it’s simply avoiding arrest and being out in the community reoffending. If you’re busted for dealing meth and get released pending trial and then don’t show you’re probably just out there selling meth again, crashing at a buddy’s place and avoiding getting pulled over.
      - kstenerud 6y ago