Basically, if you are deemed not a risk to the community/flight risk(all arguable in this case but they did set them bail amounts), the courts give you a sum based on your accused offense you can pay to get out of jail till the trial date. If you show up to trial you get the bail amounts back, if you don’t you get a warrant and the courts keep your money. Where bail “bonds” come into play, is they are companies acting as pseudo banks who will lend you money to make bail with interest obviously. It’s very predatory because the only people who generally have to use these are poor people and the states don’t care about poor criminals enough to make it not so predatory.
I haven’t seen bonds work like that (but I don’t doubt some do).
The way they work around me is:
You get a bond for $2000
You go to a bail bondsman and give them the paperwork
You pay 15% of your bond to them ($300 in this case)
That’s it. They keep your $300 and they post your $2000 bail. You don’t get your $300 back when you go to court. But you also don’t get hunted down by a bounty hunter and you don’t get additional charges for skipping as long as you show up for your court date.
edit: my brain stopped working on point 4 as pointed out by @[email protected]
But you also don’t get hunted down by a bounty hunter and you don’t get additional charges for skipping your court date.
Oh you absolutely do get hunted down by a bounty hunter and get additional charges for skipping your court date. Bail Bondsmen don’t take kindly to losing money because you skipped bail. If you could avoid additional charges and getting hunted down, everybody would just run to their local bail bondsman, drop 10%, and then just skip town.
Sorry, that was worded very poorly on my part. I don’t even know what I was trying to say there but it should be “as long as you show up for your court date.” I think I forgot what I was typing out halfway through that sentence, hahaha.
Edit: I just figured out what happened. That was meant to be a continuation from the first sentence, not a separate thought. Rearranged and commas added for clarity:
You don’t get your $300 back, you don’t get hunted down by a bounty hunter, and you don’t get additional charges for skipping out when you show up on your court date(s).
Worth also noting the amount varies for state/federal/immigration-related bonds (generally increasing from 10/15/20%). This can vary by state law, too.
It can also vary depending on the size of the bond. A $200,000 bond may have a higher percentage than a $2,000.
Getting in lots of trouble is much more expensive than getting into little bits of trouble, in one of the few progressively-structured aspects of our criminal justice system.
Also worth noting it’s probably only progressively-structured because the constitution requires it, via the 8th amendment.
Basically, if you are deemed not a risk to the community/flight risk(all arguable in this case but they did set them bail amounts), the courts give you a sum based on your accused offense you can pay to get out of jail till the trial date. If you show up to trial you get the bail amounts back, if you don’t you get a warrant and the courts keep your money. Where bail “bonds” come into play, is they are companies acting as pseudo banks who will lend you money to make bail with interest obviously. It’s very predatory because the only people who generally have to use these are poor people and the states don’t care about poor criminals enough to make it not so predatory.
I haven’t seen bonds work like that (but I don’t doubt some do). The way they work around me is:
for skippingas long as you show up for your court date.edit: my brain stopped working on point 4 as pointed out by @[email protected]
Oh you absolutely do get hunted down by a bounty hunter and get additional charges for skipping your court date. Bail Bondsmen don’t take kindly to losing money because you skipped bail. If you could avoid additional charges and getting hunted down, everybody would just run to their local bail bondsman, drop 10%, and then just skip town.
Sorry, that was worded very poorly on my part. I don’t even know what I was trying to say there but it should be “as long as you show up for your court date.” I think I forgot what I was typing out halfway through that sentence, hahaha.
Edit: I just figured out what happened. That was meant to be a continuation from the first sentence, not a separate thought. Rearranged and commas added for clarity: You don’t get your $300 back, you don’t get hunted down by a bounty hunter, and you don’t get additional charges for skipping out when you show up on your court date(s).
Great post and explanation.
Worth also noting the amount varies for state/federal/immigration-related bonds (generally increasing from 10/15/20%). This can vary by state law, too.
It can also vary depending on the size of the bond. A $200,000 bond may have a higher percentage than a $2,000.
Getting in lots of trouble is much more expensive than getting into little bits of trouble, in one of the few progressively-structured aspects of our criminal justice system.
Also worth noting it’s probably only progressively-structured because the constitution requires it, via the 8th amendment.
Cheers, definitely predatory. Not a good look for him then.