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It's so wrong that rich folks can just skip jail. I'm just reading Harari's Sapiens, and one of his points is that it's crazy that today it's accepted that poor

by shafyy 4y ago

It's so wrong that rich folks can just skip jail. I'm just reading Harari's Sapiens, and one of his points is that it's crazy that today it's accepted that poorer people are discriminated against. That many people think that being poor is a not something that happens by chance, but by people being lazy or dumb.

jjcon 4y ago
I don’t know any poor folks that have had a $250 million dollar bail. Bail for first time offenders ranges from $500-$2500. It is just collateral, you don’t actually pay it if that wasn’t clear. If you can’t temporarily post bond there are 100s of companies out there that will post for you for a small fee (fractions of your actual bond). Is it perfectly fair? No, but I don’t think it is a terrible system either. Generally for first time offenders that are not a threat to society and unlikely to skip court, bail is waived altogether.
Mizza 4y ago
It's wrong that poor people who aren't a threat to society are imprisoned because they can't afford bail, not that rich people aren't. Don't think that the way to get rid of the disparity of privilege is to take it away - it is to grant it to more.
- itake 4y ago
  I see a lot of news articles in Seattle about people that were released from jail by a judge with no bail while they wait for trail and then go on to commit even more serious crimes (arson, rape and murder) in the following days. I think society struggles with knowing who is a threat and who isn't. The consequences of being wrong is rape, death, and arson. > released without bail and was arrested 10 hours later for arson https://westseattleblog.com/2022/10/crime-watch-followup-arson-suspect-arrested-hours-after-judge-released-him-in-another-case/#comments https://westseattleblog.com/2022/10/crime-watch-followup-ars... > A judge released him [..] one week before this Monday’s murder. https://westseattleblog.com/2022/06/crime-watch-followup-arrest-in-delridge-murder/ https://westseattleblog.com/2022/06/crime-watch-followup-arr... > Fulk is a convicted felon and was arrested just eight days earlier in neighboring Pierce County for threatening to kill a Pierce Transit public safety officer. https://komonews.com/news/local/witness-describes-vicious-violent-murder-near-seattles-pike-place-market https://komonews.com/news/local/witness-describes-vicious-vi...
  - ravi-delia 4y ago
    That's because it makes the headlines- working out the real statistics wouldn't even be that hard and would totally remove the need for such sensationalist nonsense, but of course that doesn't pay the bills.
    - jjcon 4y ago
      Uhhh… what? So what level of rape/murder is appropriate/acceptable for criminals out on bail to commit, statistically speaking of course? I’m pretty sure the rest of us think it should be 0… but maybe that is just me. 3 notable examples in the last 6 months in one area… not zero… not anywhere close.
      - ravi-delia 4y ago
        Obviously higher than 0, all else being equal. I have priorities other than keeping people locked up on the off chance that a tiny fraction of them might commit a crime- given that most people would at least claim to support fair trials with evidence and such, I suspect that 0 is actually a pretty rare response. edit: I think your edit made things a little clearer. I doubt we agree, but we've talked past each other here. The relevant statistic is [number of people who commit crimes on bail]/[number of people released on bail]. If we had Minority-Report-style precogs, we could have had 0 such cases in the last 6 months while denying only 3 more people bail. But we don't have that option- there's not much to be done about the sensitivity, so all we can do is crank the cutoff of doubt higher or lower. With tens of thousands of people released on bail, and assuming that identifying the nth potential murderer roughly follows a power law distribution (a fairly reasonable assumption in a sensitivity/specificity situation like this) we're talking about jailing thousands of innocents to prevent one guilty man from going free. If look at violent crime in general the numbers are less skewed (around 2%), but I'd hope that most people balk at the idea of preemptively jailing ten people without trial to prevent just one from committing a crime. I mean, recidivism rates after prison are way higher than that- perhaps "the rest of us" would favor life sentences for every crime, but I doubt it.
        4y ago
ch4s3 4y ago
Why should anyone who isn't a danger to the community be held in jail pre-trail?
- RobLach 4y ago
  In this context; someone who can't afford bail makes someone a danger to the community?
  - stu2b50 4y ago
    It’s usually more about flight risk. “Have nothing to lose” is the phrase that’d be associated with people who can’t afford bail. It’s a tough situation because optimally no one who’s not a flight risk or dangerous should be in jail. They’re all innocent, after all, until they have trial. A financial hostage is just the easiest to implement.
    - arrrg 4y ago
      That seems like a deeply weird perspective to me because where I’m from (Germany) bail just isn’t a thing. At all. And we do totally fine. Whether or not someone is held in jail before trial is determined by whether there is a risk that they might flee, destroy evidence or influence witnesses and that judgement has to be taken in a proportional manner (so e.g. if jailing someone before trial would likely put them in jail longer than their potential punishment then you can’t do it). It actually doesn’t happen that often. As is often the case with criminal justice one of the biggest issues is actually that it just takes too long until there is a trial and this often also leads to problems with the duration someone sits in jail before trial. Six months are supposed to be the usual upper limit, in practice, however, that line is frequently crossed. So the thing I would want to improve in Germany is time until trial. (And: this is also not to say that this system is perfect. For example, people without a home are empirically much more likely to be jailed, even though the Constitutional Court determined that just the mere fact that someone doesn’t have a home isn’t a valid reason to consider someone a flight risk. Every individual case is supposed to be considered on its own terms. In practice that obviously doesn’t work perfectly.) As for the US, you need judges to decide whether and how to set bail anyway, just get them to decide on flight risk and risk of tampering with evidence or witnesses instead. Currently there are around 12,000 people in jail awaiting trial in Germany. In the US there are around half a million people in jail awaiting trial. Normalizing for population that’s around 150 per million in Germany and 1,500 per million in the US. There also seems to be about a five time difference in the crime rate (if we are focussing on violent crime) with, for example, five times more murders per capita in the US. So, even taking that difference into account the US still seems to be jailing about double the people Germany does pre-trial. Doesn’t seem like a great system … (Obviously all back of the napkin calculations. Please check my numbers if you think there’s anything wrong with those.)
rightbyte 4y ago
I am not defending the bail system but is it not set to be "much" given the crime and your wealth?
Gasp0de 4y ago
I am not from America, but iirc bail doesn't exist after you have been sentenced to jail, it's only to make sure that you will come to your trial? In Germany, you are only held in jail in the time before the trial if there is a reasonable suspicion that you might flee the country or commit other crimes.
- xeromal 4y ago
  Yeah, bail is basically a deposit promise that you'll come to the trial when it comes up. Some trials take a few months to a year or two to come up on the docket depending on how busy they are. Bail is usually proportional to your crime and there are businesses that will pay your bail if you give them 10%. They take the risk and will send a bounty hunter after you if you skip bail. Some states like California are testing out non-cash bails which is probably similar to what Germany does. If you do something evil like murder, you stay in jail until your trial. If you're harmless and not looking to escape the country, they let you go.
  - troupe 4y ago
    > Bail is usually proportional to your crime I think it is supposed to be tied to how likely you might be to flee. So a rich person accused of a crime that could lead to the death penalty would have huge bail. (Or likely not be given bail at all.). A poor person accused of a minor crime would likely have a very low bail.
  - karpierz 4y ago
    To be clear: bail is not for criminals, it's for people accused of a crime. Which is not to say if you commit murder, you go to jail without bail. It's if you're accused of murder and made to stand trial, then you go to jail without bail, regardless of if you're guilty or not. Really messes with poor people because if they don't have bail money, they either: 1. Sit in jail for a few months, unable to work, while their bills pile up, kids go uncared for, and rent is due. 2. Pay 10% of bail to a bail bondsman, who keeps the money regardless of if the accused is innocent or guilty, just so they have the privilege of walking free while awaiting trial for a crime they may or may not have committed.
stu2b50 4y ago
Perhaps, but the issue is more that some people can't skip jail. No one should be in jail - they're innocent. It's a imperfect solution necessary because some people will flee, or commit further crimes (possibly retaliatory). Bail is just an easy "solution" - a financial hostage. For people with nothing to lose, it's hard to find a way to encourage good behavior before trial.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> That many people think that being poor is a not something that happens by chance, but by people being lazy or dumb There are certainly motivated, intelligent poor people. But if you don't think lazy & dumb isn't over-represented amongst poor people, then you've been leading an insular life.
CydeWeys 4y ago
> It's so wrong that rich folks can just skip jail. He hasn't been convicted of a crime. What's wrong is for people who haven't been convicted of a crime to spend time in jail, especially in situations like this where he isn't posing a physical danger to the community (and indeed won't even be leaving the house anyway).
- shafyy 4y ago
  I didn't make a statement whether jail is good or bad. My point is that people who can come up with money (to post bail) shouldn't be treated differently than people who don't have that money. Your financial situation should play no role here.
coldtea 4y ago
Just skip jail? Most of them skip being taken to trial at all, and a smaller minority of them assure that they pass the laws they like...
civopsec 4y ago
> It's so wrong that rich folks can just skip jail. I'm just reading Harari's Sapiens, and one of his points is that it's crazy that today it's accepted that poorer people are discriminated against. That many people think that being poor is a not something that happens by chance, but by people being lazy or dumb. Maybe Harari doesn’t realize that the true arbiters of right and wrong—no matter what people might think—are people with power. And often is people who are rich, although they might have no formal power. In that light it is not strange.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by shafyy 4y ago

jjcon 4y ago

I don’t know any poor folks that have had a $250 million dollar bail. Bail for first time offenders ranges from $500-$2500. It is just collateral, you don’t actually pay it if that wasn’t clear. If you can’t temporarily post bond there are 100s of companies out there that will post for you for a small fee (fractions of your actual bond). Is it perfectly fair? No, but I don’t think it is a terrible system either. Generally for first time offenders that are not a threat to society and unlikely to skip court, bail is waived altogether.

Mizza 4y ago

It's wrong that poor people who aren't a threat to society are imprisoned because they can't afford bail, not that rich people aren't. Don't think that the way to get rid of the disparity of privilege is to take it away - it is to grant it to more.

itake 4y ago
I see a lot of news articles in Seattle about people that were released from jail by a judge with no bail while they wait for trail and then go on to commit even more serious crimes (arson, rape and murder) in the following days. I think society struggles with knowing who is a threat and who isn't. The consequences of being wrong is rape, death, and arson. > released without bail and was arrested 10 hours later for arson https://westseattleblog.com/2022/10/crime-watch-followup-arson-suspect-arrested-hours-after-judge-released-him-in-another-case/#comments https://westseattleblog.com/2022/10/crime-watch-followup-ars... > A judge released him [..] one week before this Monday’s murder. https://westseattleblog.com/2022/06/crime-watch-followup-arrest-in-delridge-murder/ https://westseattleblog.com/2022/06/crime-watch-followup-arr... > Fulk is a convicted felon and was arrested just eight days earlier in neighboring Pierce County for threatening to kill a Pierce Transit public safety officer. https://komonews.com/news/local/witness-describes-vicious-violent-murder-near-seattles-pike-place-market https://komonews.com/news/local/witness-describes-vicious-vi...
- ravi-delia 4y ago
  That's because it makes the headlines- working out the real statistics wouldn't even be that hard and would totally remove the need for such sensationalist nonsense, but of course that doesn't pay the bills.
  - jjcon 4y ago
    Uhhh… what? So what level of rape/murder is appropriate/acceptable for criminals out on bail to commit, statistically speaking of course? I’m pretty sure the rest of us think it should be 0… but maybe that is just me. 3 notable examples in the last 6 months in one area… not zero… not anywhere close.
    - ravi-delia 4y ago
      Obviously higher than 0, all else being equal. I have priorities other than keeping people locked up on the off chance that a tiny fraction of them might commit a crime- given that most people would at least claim to support fair trials with evidence and such, I suspect that 0 is actually a pretty rare response. edit: I think your edit made things a little clearer. I doubt we agree, but we've talked past each other here. The relevant statistic is [number of people who commit crimes on bail]/[number of people released on bail]. If we had Minority-Report-style precogs, we could have had 0 such cases in the last 6 months while denying only 3 more people bail. But we don't have that option- there's not much to be done about the sensitivity, so all we can do is crank the cutoff of doubt higher or lower. With tens of thousands of people released on bail, and assuming that identifying the nth potential murderer roughly follows a power law distribution (a fairly reasonable assumption in a sensitivity/specificity situation like this) we're talking about jailing thousands of innocents to prevent one guilty man from going free. If look at violent crime in general the numbers are less skewed (around 2%), but I'd hope that most people balk at the idea of preemptively jailing ten people without trial to prevent just one from committing a crime. I mean, recidivism rates after prison are way higher than that- perhaps "the rest of us" would favor life sentences for every crime, but I doubt it.
      - 4y ago

ch4s3 4y ago

Why should anyone who isn't a danger to the community be held in jail pre-trail?

RobLach 4y ago
In this context; someone who can't afford bail makes someone a danger to the community?
- stu2b50 4y ago
  It’s usually more about flight risk. “Have nothing to lose” is the phrase that’d be associated with people who can’t afford bail. It’s a tough situation because optimally no one who’s not a flight risk or dangerous should be in jail. They’re all innocent, after all, until they have trial. A financial hostage is just the easiest to implement.
  - arrrg 4y ago
    That seems like a deeply weird perspective to me because where I’m from (Germany) bail just isn’t a thing. At all. And we do totally fine. Whether or not someone is held in jail before trial is determined by whether there is a risk that they might flee, destroy evidence or influence witnesses and that judgement has to be taken in a proportional manner (so e.g. if jailing someone before trial would likely put them in jail longer than their potential punishment then you can’t do it). It actually doesn’t happen that often. As is often the case with criminal justice one of the biggest issues is actually that it just takes too long until there is a trial and this often also leads to problems with the duration someone sits in jail before trial. Six months are supposed to be the usual upper limit, in practice, however, that line is frequently crossed. So the thing I would want to improve in Germany is time until trial. (And: this is also not to say that this system is perfect. For example, people without a home are empirically much more likely to be jailed, even though the Constitutional Court determined that just the mere fact that someone doesn’t have a home isn’t a valid reason to consider someone a flight risk. Every individual case is supposed to be considered on its own terms. In practice that obviously doesn’t work perfectly.) As for the US, you need judges to decide whether and how to set bail anyway, just get them to decide on flight risk and risk of tampering with evidence or witnesses instead. Currently there are around 12,000 people in jail awaiting trial in Germany. In the US there are around half a million people in jail awaiting trial. Normalizing for population that’s around 150 per million in Germany and 1,500 per million in the US. There also seems to be about a five time difference in the crime rate (if we are focussing on violent crime) with, for example, five times more murders per capita in the US. So, even taking that difference into account the US still seems to be jailing about double the people Germany does pre-trial. Doesn’t seem like a great system … (Obviously all back of the napkin calculations. Please check my numbers if you think there’s anything wrong with those.)

rightbyte 4y ago

I am not defending the bail system but is it not set to be "much" given the crime and your wealth?

Gasp0de 4y ago

I am not from America, but iirc bail doesn't exist after you have been sentenced to jail, it's only to make sure that you will come to your trial? In Germany, you are only held in jail in the time before the trial if there is a reasonable suspicion that you might flee the country or commit other crimes.

xeromal 4y ago
Yeah, bail is basically a deposit promise that you'll come to the trial when it comes up. Some trials take a few months to a year or two to come up on the docket depending on how busy they are. Bail is usually proportional to your crime and there are businesses that will pay your bail if you give them 10%. They take the risk and will send a bounty hunter after you if you skip bail. Some states like California are testing out non-cash bails which is probably similar to what Germany does. If you do something evil like murder, you stay in jail until your trial. If you're harmless and not looking to escape the country, they let you go.
- troupe 4y ago
  > Bail is usually proportional to your crime I think it is supposed to be tied to how likely you might be to flee. So a rich person accused of a crime that could lead to the death penalty would have huge bail. (Or likely not be given bail at all.). A poor person accused of a minor crime would likely have a very low bail.
- karpierz 4y ago
  To be clear: bail is not for criminals, it's for people accused of a crime. Which is not to say if you commit murder, you go to jail without bail. It's if you're accused of murder and made to stand trial, then you go to jail without bail, regardless of if you're guilty or not. Really messes with poor people because if they don't have bail money, they either: 1. Sit in jail for a few months, unable to work, while their bills pile up, kids go uncared for, and rent is due. 2. Pay 10% of bail to a bail bondsman, who keeps the money regardless of if the accused is innocent or guilty, just so they have the privilege of walking free while awaiting trial for a crime they may or may not have committed.

stu2b50 4y ago

Perhaps, but the issue is more that some people can't skip jail. No one should be in jail - they're innocent. It's a imperfect solution necessary because some people will flee, or commit further crimes (possibly retaliatory). Bail is just an easy "solution" - a financial hostage. For people with nothing to lose, it's hard to find a way to encourage good behavior before trial.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> That many people think that being poor is a not something that happens by chance, but by people being lazy or dumb There are certainly motivated, intelligent poor people. But if you don't think lazy & dumb isn't over-represented amongst poor people, then you've been leading an insular life.

CydeWeys 4y ago

> It's so wrong that rich folks can just skip jail. He hasn't been convicted of a crime. What's wrong is for people who haven't been convicted of a crime to spend time in jail, especially in situations like this where he isn't posing a physical danger to the community (and indeed won't even be leaving the house anyway).

shafyy 4y ago
I didn't make a statement whether jail is good or bad. My point is that people who can come up with money (to post bail) shouldn't be treated differently than people who don't have that money. Your financial situation should play no role here.

coldtea 4y ago

Just skip jail? Most of them skip being taken to trial at all, and a smaller minority of them assure that they pass the laws they like...

civopsec 4y ago

> It's so wrong that rich folks can just skip jail. I'm just reading Harari's Sapiens, and one of his points is that it's crazy that today it's accepted that poorer people are discriminated against. That many people think that being poor is a not something that happens by chance, but by people being lazy or dumb. Maybe Harari doesn’t realize that the true arbiters of right and wrong—no matter what people might think—are people with power. And often is people who are rich, although they might have no formal power. In that light it is not strange.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]