
Bail reform could give justice to poor, minorities - cubano
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/orange-county/article215771080.html
======
adtechperson
This is not a new problem. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in "Democracy in
America" in 1835:

"It is evident that such a legislation is hostile to the poor and favorable
only to the rich. The poor man has not always security to produce, even in a
civil case; and if he is obliged to wait for justice in prison, he is speedily
reduced to distress. A wealthy person, on the contrary, always escapes
imprisonment in civil cases; nay, more, if he has committed a crime, he may
readily elude punishment by breaking his bail. Thus all the penalties of the
law are, for him, reduced to fines. Nothing can be more aristocratic than this
system of legislation. Yet in America it is the poor who make the law, and
they usually reserve the greatest advantages of society to themselves. The
explanation of the phenomenon is to be found in England; the laws of which I
speak are English, and the Americans have retained them, although repugnant to
the general tenor of their legislation and the mass of their ideas."

~~~
sol_remmy
> It is evident that such a legislation is hostile to the poor and favorable
> only to the rich

I feel hopeless that this will ever change. In a extremely liberal city like
San Francisco, where nearly every citizen follows progressive politics, NIMBYs
have passed laws the enrich wealthy renters and make it hard for the poor to
afford to live in the city.

If San Francisco cannot get this right, no one can.

~~~
CPLX
I agree somewhat with your conclusion but I question your premise.

From an outsider perspective San Francisco strikes me as a culture that is,
and has been for decades, a creation of the affluent class.

Hippies and tech founders alike have all talked a good game about an equal
society, but both groups are primarily seeded from the children of the rich
and well educated and have worked to preserve the status quo.

New York City, for all its superficial associations with finance and Wall
Street culture, has always seemed to be a much more genuinely diverse and
empathetic place in actual day to day policy and practice.

~~~
zaksoup
as a Oakland resident with family in NYC I couldn't agree with this more.

------
nimbius
speaking from experience (I have been incarcerated in the past) the bail
system is a complete joke.

If you get the public defender, you'll likely see about a 6 minute pretrial to
set your bail if you get one. its factory-like in its efficiency, and you're
lined up with 20 other inmates that were just loaded off a bus from the local
jail. The judge is half-asleep, likely overworked, or just too jaded to care
anymore. assuming you havent killed anyone, you'll get around a 50k bail. mine
was just shy of $34,000 USD.

If you dont have the cash for bail, you can attempt to secure a bail bond at
10% of the face amount. youll do this through family members sometimes, but
youll use the jail phone. Using the jail phone is about nine dollars per phone
call as its managed by a private phone company. your access to this phone is
often once per week, because jails are massively overcrowded and youre
scheduled a 5 minute phone call.

After sleeping on a yoga mat in a group cell for about 2 weeks, you'll finally
make bail. This often comes with a processing fee from the county or city.
depending on your city, you'll also be issued a bill or invoice for your stay
in jail. If you were assaulted or sent to medical, your bill will include any
treatment. some jails can use this to _refuse_ your bail paperwork...so no
matter what you got for a bail bond, its now useless. and behavior? Anything
at all can be used to refuse bail processing.

Once I'd made restitution and been released from prison, the bond fee had been
paid, and I was a free man. Or so you'd think. Most bail bond agencies have
their own team of bounty hunters and they dont maintain accurate paperwork for
many orders. Due to a misfiling, I was labeled as a skip-jump. Before even
checking with the state for a warrant, their 'team' had tackled me in a taco
bell parking lot at 8 am on my way to work. I spent nearly an hour in the back
of a police cruiser until I was released. I was not given the option to press
charges.

~~~
pwned1
Wow. If you don't mind asking, what were you in prison for?

~~~
DannyB2
Allow me to point out that innocent people can end up in prison pending trial.

~~~
hackermailman
It's also a common tactic for police to do mass arrests on a Friday if some
large event is happening on the weekend too. That's how they clean the streets
of anything that will embarass the mayor in front of foreign press such as
homeless with unpaid fines, activists they know will disrupt, ect. You have to
wait all weekend in jail to see a judge on Monday or Tuesday that will almost
always just release you. Anybody whos been through the system the first thing
you notice is how at least half the people you meet shouldn't be there.

------
nkw
I think most people with more than a passing acquittance with the bail systems
in most states could agree with the title, but what I have not seen are any
proposed solutions that address the underlying problems certain
characteristics of our bail systems are meant to address.

For example, without the threat of forfeiture how do you ensure people
actually show up to court?

Without bail bondsmen how do you fund the extra police/marshals/sheriffs to
find and arrest those who do not show up for court?

Without the ability to set bond amounts based upon offense characteristics and
individual financial circumstances and criminal history, how do you prevent
especially violent offenders with a likelihood of committing more violent acts
while on pretrial release from committing new violent offenses? Keep in mind
there are some jurisdictions where you are constitutionally entitled to bail
of some amount.

There is much (justified) lamenting on the evils of the use of the bail bond
industry, but after bail reform in the Federal system which effective ended
the use of the industry for the Federal criminal system -- do people really
think the Federal system is better? If so why?

If you want to go the other direction and eliminate money bail, do you really
want to police/prosecution to able to indefinitely incarcerate people until
trial?

Do you want to seriously jack up the criminal penalties for failure to appear
in lieu of money forfeiture? That is going to screw over a lot of people.

Again, there are serious problems, but I haven't heard significantly better
solutions.

~~~
mikestew
_For example, without the threat of forfeiture how do you ensure people
actually show up to court?_

Because my life is fucked worse than it already is if I don't show up. If
that's not the case, then that's almost the working definition of "flight
risk", and you don't release them for any amount of money.

~~~
nkw
> Because my life is fucked worse than it already is if I don't show up.

This is already the case, but surprisingly people (including those accused of
crimes) do not always make choices which are in their long-term self interest.

> If that's not the case, then that's almost the working definition of "flight
> risk", and you don't release them for any amount of money.

So how do you determine who is a "flight risk"? Past FTA? Past convictions?
Don't own property? No family ties to community? From the wrong part of town?
Wrong skin color? These are the types of things that will end up going into
detention decisions when you take the posting of security off the table and
start trying to decide who is a "flight risk". The reason we have our bail
system, including in many places a constitutional right to bail for non-
capital offenses, is before that Courts would simply deny bail willy-nilly for
certain crimes or people they didn't like.

~~~
mikestew
It's not always the case that it's worse if you don't show up. As an extreme
example, if you're already facing life, running isn't going to make that worse
(they're not going to execute you for skipping bail). On the other extreme,
notice we don't have to post bail for a traffic ticket. However, if I don't
show, there's now a warrant for my arrest. I was in no danger of going to jail
if I showed up for my traffic hearing, but I'm most definitely going to jail
(even if only briefly) if I'm pulled over with an outstanding warrant.

But let's go with your thinking. Let's use money, instead of those factors in
your second paragraph. But you know what having money for bail might mean? You
own property, have family ties to the community, are from the right part of
town, and statistically probably have the right skin color. I mean, I see
where you're going with this, but in the end I think it's a wash. You've
either got money, or you are found pleasing to the judge's eye, and either way
it means you're likely white and wealthy.

So I don't know what the solution is. But as others have commented, the UK
seems to get away without having to post money for bail (though some have
pointed out the exact problems you worry about).

~~~
rayiner
> I was in no danger of going to jail if I showed up for my traffic hearing,
> but I'm most definitely going to jail (even if only briefly) if I'm pulled
> over with an outstanding warrant.

And yet, people skipping court dates for traffic violations is extremely
prevalent. In many areas, there are varying degrees of enforcement of failure
to appear arrest warrants because of how common they are. (They'll have like
amnesty days and stuff like that to encourage people to appear.)

The basic problem is that poor people have very little to lose by not showing
up to court.

------
mchanson
Bail isn't needed. Most people show up to court. You can go track down folks
who don't if the crime is worth it.

You can pay for those people through taxes.

Currently Cash bail, and pretrial incarceration is used as a punishment and
serves no other purpose.

------
revscat
It's not broken if your overarching goals are to decrease the political power
of the poor and middle classes through increased financial instability and/or
incarceration.

------
burkemw3
In addition to reform, there are non-profits assisting people within the
current system. The Bronx Freedom Fund [0] and their Dollar Bail Brigade [1]
are particularly interesting to me.

[0]: [http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/our-
work/](http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/our-work/) [1]:
[http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/dollarbailbrigade/](http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/dollarbailbrigade/)

------
troupe
> Those who can’t make bail are 13 percent more likely to be convicted,

Is it possible that people guilty of crimes are more likely to be convicted
and guilty people are less likely to make bail?

~~~
amigoMigo
There is a huge incentive to plead guilty when you cannot make bail. After
several weeks in jail they most likely let you walk after a guilty plea
because you get time served.

------
gregcrv
You can support California SB 10 to help fixing the Bail system.

[https://www.aclunc.org/article/california-money-bail-
reform-...](https://www.aclunc.org/article/california-money-bail-reform-
act-2017)

------
tharwat
Mainprise is a startup building a peer-to-peer bail payment platform on NEM
Blockchain. The BAIL Token platform will enable family and friends to request
low fee bail payments. Instead of throwing money away on bail bondsmen.
Families apply for bail on the platform. After verifying their identity, they
provide details on the accused such as name, bail amount, arrest charge, jail
location, and booking number. The details along with details sourced from
public data are fed into an AI-based risk scoring tool to generate a risk
score. The tool will use data from millions of cases to help determine if the
accused is likely to skip trial or commit another crime if released. Based on
the score a fee of 0-3% is paid by the applicant.

Once the accused is released, we monitor the court calendars and notify them
of court dates and changes. After attending court and regardless of the
verdict, guilty or innocent. The bail payment is refunded by the court and
returned to the token holders along with a share of the fee collected.

[http://mainprise.io](http://mainprise.io)

YouTube videos:
[http://youtube.com/c/mainpriseio](http://youtube.com/c/mainpriseio)

~~~
maym86
No thanks. Bail + blockchain + AI is still just bail. The point is this is
still based on proving you or your family's ability to pay a bail with added
"AI" which is notoriously bad for this kind of thing due to historical
training data being full of bias.

The book weapons of math destruction goes into the issues with machine
learning and the prison system.

[https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com](https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com)

> Families apply for bail on the platform.

The fact that you focus on a family's ability to pay just highlights one way
in which the system is biased against people without family support.

~~~
tharwat
Not just family. But anyone can apply for bail. Even the offender can dial a
tollfree number to apply. The risk assessment is used to predict the
likelihood of FTA (same risk assessment being using in court systems today).
This factor is provided to "peers" to help them determine if they want to
contribute to bail payments.

~~~
maym86
You are missing the point. It depends on who you know or who you can convince
to provide money. This is inherently unfair.

------
shanselman
Check out [https://appolition.us](https://appolition.us) \- They take your
purchases and round them up so that your digital loose change goes to help
people make bail.

------
merpnderp
Isn't this really a problem of over-criminalization? If our court systems
weren't clogged with suspects, wouldn't judges have more time to properly set
bail by evaluating each suspected offender on their merits?

We don't want dangerous criminals set loose without proper guarantees, and we
don't want the less wealthy pleading guilty because they can't make bail.

So the real solution seems to be to roll back as many non-violent criminal
offenses as possible and perhaps simply live with people serving plastic
straws that 99.9% won't wind up in the oceans instead of throwing them in jail
for 6 months, or at least make them into civil offenses.

------
jbb67
How does this work in other counties such as the UK?

~~~
gambiting
Police can only hold you for up to 96 hours without charging you with a crime.
Once you are charged with something and awaiting trial, you have to be tried
within 56 days. If you are not tried within those 56 days you have to be
released on unconditional bail - so courts tend to stick to those limits.
Police can set up bail before the trail, but it cannot involve money -
frequently it involves staying at a particular address, reporting to the
police station daily, not contacting certain people etc - it depends on the
severity of the crime, you cannot be released on bail for acts of violence or
armed robbery for example.

[https://www.gov.uk/charged-crime/bail](https://www.gov.uk/charged-crime/bail)

[https://www.inbrief.co.uk/court-proceedings/remand-in-
custod...](https://www.inbrief.co.uk/court-proceedings/remand-in-custody-
while-awaiting-trial/)

~~~
nkw
> you have to be tried within 56 days

If this was attempted in the United States, and we wanted to maintain the due
process protections afforded by our Constitution, we would have to fund our
indigent defense programs at levels far, far beyond what anyone has been
willing to do.

~~~
mjevans
If it isn't worth properly funding the /defense/ for then maybe the matter
should just be dropped entirely. Should save quit a bit on paperwork, jail
stays, and the prosecution as well.

------
canada_dry
The three most critically important systems that we need to thrive as a
society: politics, healthcare and law are all in need of critical overhauls.

Sadly, in the West we are hell bent on pursuing unbridled capitalism while
more disciplined countries (e.g. Sweden) just shake their heads in disbelief.

------
mathieuh
Yeah, I'm sorry, but as a citizen of the UK, the US system of bail and bail
bounty hunters is just nuts.

A child could see that it is incredibly regressive (in the economic sense of
the word).

~~~
gambiting
Same as the plea bargain system - it's completely obvious that US has loads of
completely innocent people pleading guilty just to get out of jail, if the
alternative is waiting a year or longer for the trial. It's insane.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Which is insane. We acknowledge that someone making a statement when they are
kidnapped is under extreme duress. Yet when the state does it, somehow the
"confessions" aren't under duress and are legally binding?

Hardly.

Edit: Currently at -1. For those who -1'ed me, I'd like to hear your arguments
why state imprisonment prior to a guilty verdict isn't extreme duress, or a
violation of "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law"

~~~
amarkov
When you've been kidnapped, you have good reasons to think that the kidnapper
might just kill you if you don't go along with what they want. I've heard a
lot of abusive police interrogation practices in the US, and none of them go
so far to make you worry you'll be taken out back and shot.

You're drawing an equivalence that just isn't there, and I think you know
that.

~~~
gambiting
I do remember reading articles saying that prosecutors frequently say to
detainees who have already spent 3-6 months in jail "look, you can plead
guilty to this minor crime, and with the time served you can go home to your
family tomorrow. Or you can wait for trial, which can happen maybe in next 12
months, if the judge isn't sick on that day and doesn't reschedule for another
3 months later. So what will it be? Do you want to go home tomorrow, or stay
locked up for a year before even going to trial?"

Like, I don't think I'd care how innocent I was - I'd want to get out asap. If
your options are presented as "get out now" or "stay locked up for an
indefinite amount of time, with no hope for compensation for the time lost
even if you win" then it's an easy choice.

------
zomg
meanwhile, in massachusetts where bail can't be used as an economic means to
keep people locked up, criminals are being freed and continue to do what they
do best. just this month:

officer chesna and vera adams in weymouth, ma -- gunned down with his own
service weapon by a savage whose bail was reduced ($5k to $500). this asshole
then murdered an elderly woman on her own porch who witnessed the murder.

marine combat veteran kevin quinn -- killed in a head on crash by another low-
life who was freed because his bail was reduced (from $35k to $1k).

it's comical that this topic is positioned as "rich vs poor" issue. in
reality, criminals who are a serious threat to society, are being let loose
and innocent civilians become the collateral damage.

~~~
lexs
But that is the entire point of this discussion. If someone is a rich "low-
life" then even a $5k or $35k bail from your example wouldn't have stopped him
from being out. If you really care about not freeing "criminals" (that have
not been convicted yet right?) then wouldn't you appreciate a system only
reliant on danger to society and flight risk, why even bring economics into
it?

~~~
nine_k
Are there many rich low-lifes? Are many well-off people detained for
personally committing violent crimes?

I'd suppose most serious crimes by well-off people are either economical, or
done by hired hitmen. OTOH a previously lucky criminal may possess quite
enough loot from crimes yet uncovered to pay a large bail.

------
crankylinuxuser
This is only one part of a system that the rich have their rules, and the rest
have "their rules".

It also goes along with the idea: pay for a bigshot attorney, get out of
murder charge. Be poor accused, get public defender and a guilty charge.

In Indiana, you can even expunge felonies up to a certain criminal threshold.
Do you know what the primary criteria is? You have to _PAY_ for them to
expunge.

The USA has always been pay-for-play. Now, its being called out for what it
is. This country, the legal system, elections; you name it. The more money you
have, the more influence you have, and the "better" the system is for you.

How do we fix this? The simple answer is to elect people who have more liberal
mindsets that try to get rid of these poor=disenfranchised laws. That's a long
term, and not even guaranteed to work. What do we have short term? I have no
clue.

~~~
IanDrake
Why are you so sure a conservative mindset wouldn’t be more helpful?

In practice, it was liberals who enacted heavy sentences on crack usage.

California, an extremely liberal state, voted in a 72% majority referendum for
the three strikes policy.

So, I’m just curious why liberals have some sort of lock in the minds of
people as being on the “side of the poor”.

~~~
pmwhite
"California, an extremely liberal state, voted in a 72% majority referendum
for the three strikes policy."

Incorrect. In 1994, when the three strikes legislation passed, CA was a purple
state with a moderate Republican governor.

It is the anti-immigrant rhetoric around Prop 208 in 1996 that undermined the
GOP in the state, by driving the majority of the young and non-white into the
arms of the Democrats.

~~~
IanDrake
1994 - mostly blue.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_California)

