People misunderstand the US bail system. You can pay your bail yourself. Say a judge gives you a $5k bail. You give the government 5k and they hold it until yo

People misunderstand the US bail system. You can pay your bail yourself. Say a judge gives you a $5k bail. You give the government 5k and they hold it until your case is complete. Then they either return it or they deduct your fines etc from it and return anything left. Most people don’t do this. They go to a bail bond company, which charges them $500 and then puts up the 5k for them. They get the 5k back when the defendant shows up and keep the $500. People do skip out on bail pretty regularly, so there’s no guarantee the bondsman gets his money back. But he’s invested in finding the skipper at least as much as the government. At least in theory. The US generally doesn’t go after people very hard for skipping out on bail, they just wait until you get detained for some other crime and then arrest you for having a warrant out. Well, sometimes they still let you go after that.