Illegal Globally, Bail for Profit Remains in U.S.

[flashl]

...

posting bail for people accused of crimes in exchange for a fee, is all but unknown in the rest of the world. In England, Canada and other countries, agreeing to pay a defendant’s bond in exchange for money is a crime akin to witness tampering or bribing a juror — a form of obstruction of justice.

Mr. Spath, who is burly, gregarious and intense, owns Brandy Bail Bonds, and he sees his clients in a pleasant and sterile office building just down the street from the courthouse here. But for the handcuffs on the sign out front, it could be a dentist’s office.

Other countries almost universally reject and condemn Mr. Spath’s trade, in which defendants who are presumed innocent but cannot make bail on their own pay an outsider a nonrefundable fee for their freedom.

“It’s a very American invention,” John Goldkamp, a professor of criminal justice at Temple University, said of the commercial bail bond system. “It’s really the only place in the criminal justice system where a liberty decision is governed by a profit-making businessman who will or will not take your business.”

Although the system is remarkably effective at what it does, four states — Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon and Wisconsin — have abolished commercial bail bonds, relying instead on systems that require deposits to courts instead of payments to private businesses, or that simply trust defendants to return for trial.

NY Times

So many unique American 'justice' system inventions. So little time in a clogged court system leaving citizens waiting in jails creating little space in prisons and jails.

[ManiacJoe]

1. The article does not suggest an alternative.

Without the bail bondsmen, the options are (1) stay in jail (by choice or poverty), or (2) be rich so that you can post the whole bail in cash (all returned on your return), or (3) have enough family with wealth to pay the whole bail in cash (all returned on your return).

Of course, the old version of bail was that the person who promises you will return for court is the one who takes your place if you don't return.

With the bail bondsmen, in addition to the above three options you get option #4: pay 10% of the bail amount (none returned on your return).

[flashl]

2. Other countries use a mix of methods

Other countries use a mix of methods
Other countries use a mix of methods to ensure that defendants appear for trial.

Some simply keep defendants in jail until trial. Others ask defendants to promise to turn up for trial. Some make failure to appear a separate crime. Some impose strict conditions on release, like reporting to the police frequently. Some make defendants liable for a given sum should they fail to appear but do not collect it up front. Others require a deposit in cash from the defendant, family members or friends, which is returned when the defendant appears.

[ManiacJoe]

3. Those are also used in the USA for the most part.

> Some simply keep defendants in jail until trial.
Not everyone gets bail now, nor can all those who do get it afford it.

> Others ask defendants to promise to turn up for trial.
That would be the the definition of R.O.R.

> Some make failure to appear a separate crime.
Implied if not already explicit.

> Some impose strict conditions on release, like reporting to the police frequently.
Like that would work on a grand scale... :sarcasm:

> Some make defendants liable for a given sum should they fail to appear but do not collect it up front.
If you don't collect it up front, how does it get collected at all? In the USA, the bail is collected up front.

> Others require a deposit in cash from the defendant, family members or friends, which is returned when the defendant appears.
This would be the current definition of bail in the USA. However, the article is not clear about the size of the deposit. In the USA the deposit is 100% of the bail amount.

If you choose to use a bondsman, he puts up your full bail amount, and he gets his money back if/when you show up for trial; you pay the x% fee to use his money. Your you not return for trial, you agree to let him use extraordinary means to hunt you down and return you to trial.