Category Archives: Bail in America

Morris assistant prosecutor pushes bail-bond issue at hearing for drug defendant

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MORRISTOWN — Wading into the increasingly contentious issue of bail-bond payments, a Morris County prosecutor yesterday opposed allowing two women to share the $100,000 bail set for a 21-year-old drug defendant.

“The risk of his failure to appear would be spread among two people,” Assistant Prosecutor Joseph D’Onofrio contended.

In raising the subject at a hearing for Hilario Trejo-Sosa of Dover, who is charged with possession with intent to distribute Methylone — a drug with ecstasy-like effects — D’Onofrio cited discussions taking place on the heels of a report that elaborated on the rampant abuses of the state’s bail-bond system.

The State Commission of Investigation issued a report in May that said New Jersey’s bail-bond industry had been overtaken by rogue operators who pay inmates to drum up business in county jails and arrange discounts for dangerous offenders.

Superior Court Judge Mary Gibbons Whipple, noting that the prosecutor was raising the issue late on a Friday afternoon, delayed a decision and adjourned the hearing until Tuesday.

“This is a policy issue,” Whipple said. “You’re asking me to make a ruling without a lot of thought.

As she put it, “There is no law on this, and because there is no law, I’m not going to make a quick decision on this today.”

Bail had been set at $100,000 with no option for putting down 10 percent of the amount. The hearing had been called after Trejo-Sosa’s attorney, Sean O’Connor, asked for a reduction.

O’Connor then dropped the request for a reduction, saying he had “misread the bail guidelines” and realized $100,000 was the appropriate amount. But the discussion then veered toward the source of the bail money.

The lawyer noted that although bail reform is a subject that is being hotly debated, no new laws have been enacted. Consequently, he asked that Trejo-Sosa be allowed to pay under installment plans as do bail-bond companies.

“It is fully appropriate for my client to do a payment plan,” O’Connor said. “The risk is taken on by the bail bondsman.”

D’Onofrio said, “I will concede the 5 percent they are putting up is legitimate.” But he added, “There is no source paperwork for Mr. Trejo-Sosa” to determine where he is getting his money.

An employee of Octavia Bail Bonds in Newark, which was prepared to finance Trejo-Sosa’s bail, explained the company might typically front $90,000 for a defendant, who might pay $10,000 or less and repay it in installments.

In December, The Star-Ledger reported that suspected thieves and murderers were paying as little as $75 a month to bail-bond agents to be freed.

Jack Furlong, a defense attorney in Trenton who represents AAA Bail Bonds, a major player in the business, said the current system arose after New Jersey developed “incredibly high bails” over the past 20 years that poor defendants were unable to post.
If the bail-bond installment plan is not an option, he said, “you confine poor people to indefinite detention for no other reason than their poverty.”

Moves by prosecutors like D’Onofrio to question the bail-bond system outright are a new phenomenon, Furlong said.

In April, Bergen County’s presiding judge, Liliana DeAvila-Silebi, took direct action when she raised the bail of a gang member accused of assaulting police to $500,000 after learning he had cut what she called a “side deal.”

Under the arrangement, the bail bondsman would have been allowed to have the suspect’s family put up only $10,000 to cover 10 percent of a $350,000 bond and pay the rest in $250 monthly installments, according to the Cliffview Pilot, an online news organization.

via – NJ.com

The Unanswered Question of Bail Reform: Who Pays?

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As a follow up to my last blog post, The Bail Bond Industry: A Scapegoat of Convenience, I wanted to focus this blog post on the question that no one ever seems to want to bring up in the “Bail Reform” discussion.  And that question is…Who pays? Whether it is the state of New Jersey wanting to expand its pretrial services agencies or Maryland’s recent efforts at Bail Reform, public sector pretrial release proponents never seem to be concerned about the real elephant in the room…the money and where will it come from.

The public sector pretrial community for years has touted the success of the Washington D.C. pretrial services agency.  It is the case study that they believe is the perfect pretrial model for success and the blueprint that all counties in the U.S should follow.  However, while they tout the amazing success of the program, there is one topic that they do not typically talk about…and that is the money…or as I like to say the most important question you can ask, WHO PAYS?  The DC pretrial program monitors 4400 defendants at a whopping cost of $59 million.  That is $13,409 per defendant that is spent to supervise defendants and ensure they show up for court (BTW, the commercial bail industry does the same thing at no cost to the taxpayer).  Additionally, when a defendant fails to appear, the DC pretrial office has the luxury of having the US Marshall Service at their disposal to go after fugitives.  BTW, just for the record the success rate of the DCPSA is 88%.  That means 12% of defendants never appear for court.  Now compare that to the commercial bail industry which has a 98% success rate.  It is really amazing to think that a 12% failure rate is considered a success in the public sector.  Just imagine if your airline only got to its destination 88% of the time, or your bank only got your account balance right 88% of the time…would that be acceptable.  And just for the record, the person that funds the Washington DC pretrial program…you, the US Taxpayer.

Now in order for you to fully understand the magnitude of the dollars we are talking about, let me put this in perspective.  If you were to apply the $13,409 per defendant to a typical metropolitan county in the US that doesn’t serve 4400 defendants, but rather 20,000 defendants a year that cost balloons to over $268,180,000 to provide ONE typical metropolitan county in the US a DC like pretrial services agency (FYI…there are over 3000 counties in the US).  And remember that this typical local county won’t have the resources of the US Marshal Service available to help it track down those defendants that fail to appear. They will instead have to rely on an already overburdened and under resourced local law enforcement agency.  What this does is create significant lapses in public safety.  Either police have to put aside regular duties to pursue a growing number of fugitive warrants, or they have to ignore the fugitive warrants and go about their regular law enforcement duties to protect the public.  Whatever they decide to do, public safety is impacted in a negative way.  And please don’t misunderstand my point.  It is not law enforcements fault. The fault lies with an ineffective public sector program that costs counties money they don’t have and requires resources that are already overburdened.  Additionally, these public sector programs do not have the proper incentives and levels of accountability to perform at the highest level possible as does the private sector (i.e. the commercial bail industry). Most importantly, let’s not forget that the commercial bail bond industry is not only the most effective form of pretrial release (proven time and time again by countless research studies and academic papers), but also costs the county $0.  And this is a talking point that never seems to come up in the discussion of “bail reform.”

In a time where local states and county governments are facing tougher and tougher fiscal challenges, the idea of replacing private sector commercial bail with public sector, taxpayer funded pretrial agencies and diversion programs is not only a poor public safety decision, but more importantly also a fiscally irresponsible one.

What the bail reform movement needs is less pie in the sky ideology, but rather more realistic, evidenced based SOLUTIONS to the problem.  Proposing bigger pretrial service programs with bigger budgets doesn’t solve jail overcrowding.  Convincing decision makers to get rid of a long standing, effective private sector business like the bail bond industry does not rehabilitate career criminals.  Letting more so called “non-violent” offenders out of jail with no supervision and no accountability does not increase public safety.  Instead all these types of ideological recommendations do is exacerbate the problems in the system and deflect decision makers from the real problems.   And please know that I feel the same way towards more commercial bail.  Bail is not the be-all end-all answer to the problems facing our criminal justice system.  I am convinced that the answer does not lie with one solution or the other.  Rather, I believe that the answer involves all aspects of the criminal justice system to work together.  The private sector doing what it does well and the public sector doing what it does well.  But to date, instead of trying to solve the real problems of the system, the public sector pretrial community through its “Bail Reform” movement is putting its efforts into creating market share instead of solutions.

It is time for counties around the country to start approaching the ills of the criminal justice system with a comprehensive approach that truly addresses the roots of the cause of the problems it is facing.  Additionally, our decision makers need to start turning to those in the private sector that have the knowledge and experience to help solve some of these challenges in smart, fiscally responsible ways.

via http://briannairinbail.blogspot.com/

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The Bail Bond Industry: A Scapegoat of Convenience

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A couple weeks ago I read an article out of New Jersey talking about the ills of the criminal justice system and the need for bail reform.  The article started with telling the story of a defendant who was released on a reduced bail amount and has since been rearrested for another violent crime.  The article then goes on to talk about the many ills of the criminal justice system all couched under the umbrella of the need for “Bail Reform.” The issues identified in the article were: Jails being overcrowded, inmates being warehoused instead of rehabilitated, bail bond agents writing bail with payment plans, and so on.  Not only did the article discuss these issues as a need for bail reform but also put the blame for them squarely on the commercial bail industry.  After reading the article a couple more times, I felt myself getting more agitated and confused.  I kept saying to myself what does this have to do with the bail industry?  What have we done to have so much hate and resentment thrown towards our industry by those in the public sector? Why are we being held responsible for the criminal justice system falling short? The only answer, the bail industry was being made a scapegoat of convenience.

In order to try and rationalize things a bit, I started to breakdown the potential issues one by one and see if this overzealous criticism and finger pointing was deserved or really as misguided as I thought.  First, I looked at jail overcrowding.  Are people locked up in jail, because they can’t afford a bail bond?  Well, if you read into the article a bit you can see that the author is actually says that people are getting out “too easy” with bail through payment plans.  But even without payment plans, the concept behind bail is to facilitate the release or make it more attainable for families who can’t afford the full amount of the bail.  By assuming part of the financial risk the bail agent not only makes it easier for families to get their loved ones home, but also guarantee to the court that the defendant will show up for ALL court appearances once they are out.   So to say that bail causes jail overcrowding couldn’t be further from the truth.  Also, media coverage has shown us that states like Kentucky, Illinois, Oregon and Wisconsin all have jail overcrowding issues.  The interesting point there is that none of those states have commercial bail.  So I think we can cross that off the list.

Next, I looked at the issue of warehousing versus rehabilitation.  I tried to figure out where commercial bail plays a role in keeping convicted felons warehoused in jails and prisons instead of rehabilitating them.  This one was actually pretty easy to figure out.  Bail has nothing to do with warehousing or rehabilitation.  Bail is about “appearance.”  When a judge makes the determination that a defendant is eligible for pretrial release and sets a bail amount, it becomes the bail agent’s responsibility to ensure that those defendants that they do release on bail show up for ALL of their court appearances.  That is it.  We guarantee “appearance.”  To say that the commercial bail industry has failed to do their job and has caused the current problems in the system is not only a red herring, but also grossly misleading and accusatory.  The concept of bail is and always has been about getting defendants to court so that they could be held accountable.  And in the history of our modern day criminal justice system, there has yet to be a better form of ensuring a defendant’s appearance than a financially secured bond obtained through a commercial bail agent.  Every legitimate study, every independent research report and countless academic articles written on the subject of “pretrial release effectiveness” undeniably support this claim.

So if the commercial bail industry is not the problem than what is?  And then it hit me.  That question is not only the fleeting one, but also the answer.  No one knows what the problem is.  Without trying to truly get a snap shot of the make-up of the pretrial populations and understand the wide range of reasons why people are there, you can’t come up with a real solution to the problem.  And you definitely cannot accurately identify what the problem is in the first place. Additionally, if this is the case and the problem is so clearly undefined as it appears to be, than why are states like New Jersey proposing “Bail Reform” in the first place?  Why are decision makers proposing to throw millions of dollars of taxpayer funds at a problem that they do not know the actual cause or the most effective solution? I think these are all very important questions and ones that need to be answered by those looking to reform the criminal justice system and abolish commercial bail.  (In fact, this topic would make a pretty interesting blog post…hint, hint).

If we want to truly solve the ills of the criminal justice system there needs to be full and transparent cooperation between the public and private sector pretrial community.  In other words, we have to stop creating scapegoats and pointing fingers at each other and instead start solving problems with each other.The commercial bail industry is NOT THE PROBLEM in the criminal justice system.  Anyone who thinks so is not trying to solve the problem, but rather trying to discredit a legitimate and effective industry for their own ideological agenda and gain. If all the stakeholders are able to come together (including the commercial bail industry), I am extremely confident that together we could not only solve some of these challenges, but also strike a deeper balance between the social justice and criminal justice sides of the equation that everyone desires.  In this way, we can ensure that all parties are contributing to the solution in the best way possible and that ultimately both victims and defendants are getting their day in court, justice is being served and accountability is being maintained for us all.  I look forward to reading your comments.

via http://briannairinbail.blogspot.com

September is “Bail Month”…How to Celebrate With the Facts

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I was pleasantly surprised this week when I was forwarded an announcement from the Pretrial Justice Institute (PJI) declaring the month of September, “Bail Month.”  Initially I thought, what a great idea, a whole month dedicated to discussing the benefits of commercial bail and sharing the facts on the effectiveness of the industry.  Especially since there is so much data available to PJI and their partner the Justice Policy Institute (JPI)…data that shows how effective commercial bail is and how ineffective pretrial programsare. To add to the excitement, earlier this month the Bureau of Justice Statistics declared 2013 the year of statistics.  Wow, a month dedicated to bail and a year dedicated to statistics, I can’t think of better environment to start a conversation about the commercial bail bond industry.  Let’s see, with so much research to share, where do you think the PJI and JPI partnership will begin?  Here are some good places they might consider…and just so you know when I say “places” I am talking about the volumes of research studies that they can tap into and share.  For example, there is:

  • The Bureau of Justice Statistics studies spanning 14 years (1990-2004) of release data in the country’s 75 most populous counties.  These studies (year after year) showed that commercial bail was the most effective form of pretrial release for both appearance and reduced recidivism.

 

  • The Tabarrok study, which assessed the failure to appear rates of several different types of pretrial release mechanisms, determined that commercial bail was the most effective way to prevent an FTA and ensure a defendants appearance in court.

 

  • The ALEC study completed in 1995 that assessed the failure to appear rate in California’s three largest counties and determined that commercial bail was the most effective form of release.

 

  • The ALEC study completed in 1997 that calculated a cost for a failure to appear in California’s three largest counties and determined that Pretrial release programs were potentially costing the counties millions of dollars.

 

  • The JFA Institute Study completed in 2012 that shows that a very small portion (13%) of those in pretrial status in Los Angeles County are eligible for bail and that the jails are not crowded because people are languishing away unable to afford a bail bond.

 

  • The University of Texas at Dallas Study that looked at 22,000 releases during 2008 and compared 4 types of release mechanisms, ultimately determining that commercial bail was the most effective way to ensure that defendants show up for court.  An additional finding from this study was that the cost of an FTA was discovered to be approximately $1800 per defendant.  Using that cost figure, it was determined that commercial bail saved Dallas County over $11 Million.

With so much research available to them, and remember it is the “Year of Statistics,” I wonder which study they will use.  Okay, to be honest, we all know which of the above studies they will end up using… NONE OF THEM.  So then the next question is what studies will they use that aren’t on the list above?  Once again, the answer is unfortunately and very predictably NONE.  Why?  Because no study exists or has ever been done that shows that releasing a defendant through a pretrial program is more effective than commercial bail.

So then why would PJI and JPI declare that September is Bail Month?  That is a good question?  The answer of course is not to promote bail, or even promote pretrial (because it is hard to do that without any statistics…and remember, 2013 is the year of statistics, right?).  The answer is that the pretrial community is going to ramp up their taxpayer funded anti–bail propaganda machine to once again spread lies and mis-information about the commercial bail industry (much like last year’s efforts which resulted in the creation of the War on Public Safety document by the American Bail Coalition).

The most unfortunate thing about this is that the pretrial community isn’t doing this because it benefits local communities and law enforcement.  They aren’t doing this to educated people on the benefits and effectiveness of pretrial release (because that would make sense…and also, because we know that is too difficult to fabricate).  They aren’t doing this because it benefits crime victims and various advocacy groups.  And they are definitely not doing this because it saves counties money and lowers recidivism rates.  Then why, you ask?  Because it serves the purpose of the pretrial supporters.  In their mind, they need to constantly justify how good they are by declaring how bad commercial bail is, and in doing so they are able to feel good about themselves.  The problem is feeling good about yourself and just saying you’re better doesn’t make you better.

If the pretrial community wants to declare September “Bail Month” then I think the bail community should fully embrace and endorse their call to action.  I move that during the month of September that the bail industry dispense and share “our” collective knowledge and research with those in the criminal justice system.  We need to make sure that the real “statistics” are being shared so that local jurisdictions can make the best criminal justice decisions possible.  It is time for the bail community to stand up and be heard and I can’t think of a better time to do so.  After all, it is Bail Month.

If you would like to receive copies of any of the above research studies, please visit our bail bond resource library and select which studies you are interested in.

Via. briannairinbail.blogspot.com

Lawsuit: Maryland District Court failing to make bail bonds insurers pay up

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By Justin George, The Baltimore Sun

A company that insures bail bonds is suing Maryland’s District Court for being too lenient on its own industry.

What gives?

Lexington National Insurance Corp. says the playing field on which it’s competing with rival companies is not level. The Cockeysville company alleges in a lawsuit filed last month that the state courts have thrown away as much as $3 million by defying state law and not making competitors pay up when defendants jump bail or miss their court dates.

Lexington National says in its lawsuit that the practice puts them “at a distinct competitive disadvantage” with noncompliant insurance companies because it regularly pays forfeited bail bond bills, as required by a 2011 law.

Representatives for the District Court and Chief Clerk Roberta L. Warnken, who is listed as a co-defendant, declined to comment on the lawsuit. The attorney general’s office, which is representing the courts, also declined to comment.

But in a February memo, District Court Chief Judge Ben C. Clyburn said corrective action was being taken to make sure clerks were following the law.

Lexington National Insurance insures bail bond businesses, which put up money for criminal defendants who can’t afford bail.

The bond amount, typically much less than the full bail amount, is returned to bail bonds agents once a defendant shows up for hearings. When they don’t, the bail bonds businesses are required to pay the full bail amount. That payment is often made by insurers such as Lexington.

But between Oct. 1, 2011, and May, Lexington National Insurance claims that District court clerks failed to make some companies pay for forfeited bonds. The suit says they either ignored and erased the amount owed when defendants finally showed up after a legal deadline had passed or they failed to enter judgments ordering insurance companies to pay at all.

“Other companies are getting away without paying because the Clerk failed to timely implement protocols or has consciously chosen not to enforce the law,” Lexington National president and CEO Brian Frank wrote in an email. “Lexington National was aware of the law from its enactment and we implemented policies and procedures to comply, and continue to comply, regardless of the Clerk’s inactions or failure to enforce.”

Via touch.baltimoresun.com