Keep Bailing

Some arrestees in Virginia, who can afford to pay their own bail, have been taking advantage of a taxpayer-funded get-out-of-jail-free card that has many in the Va. General Assembly fuming. But opponents say that folks who want to end this law are merely a front for bail bondsmen who seek to line their own pockets by doing so.

It’s called “Pretrial Services” and it allows defendants to be released before their court hearing without bail. Commercial bail bondsmen want to limit this. Bondsmen point out that release on “Own Recognizance” is only supposed to be used by defendants who can’t afford their own bail, but that inmates with means seems are being offered the service – at a cost to the tax payers. Tax dollars should not be used to bail out those who have the means to pay nor should the state compete with private business.

But pretrial services supporters feel someone’s ability to pay a bail amount shouldn’t be considered for released at all. They claim these services save local governments money because it’s cheaper to let defendants go than to maintain them in overcrowded prisons – wrong. When a defendant is released without bail there is no guarantor to make sure the defendant appears in court. Reference my previous post siting the specifics problems of release without bail in Philadelphia.

Virginia is now considering a bill to codify what most states put into law decades ago: “Pretrial Release” (“PR” or Release on Own Recognizance ,”OR,” as it’s called in California) is for the “indegent” – those who cannot afford bail.

Pretrial services proponents counter that not passing the bill would remove options for judges and divide defendants into two classes based on money. “We have a lot of concern about people being denied freedom just based on their ability to pay,” said Pat Smith, director of a pretrial agency in Charlottesville.

Currently, if a person can’t afford his bail bond amount – for they are required to pay the amount in its entirety, they have the opportunity to contract with a bail bondsman, who is legally allowed to post the bond for a 10 percent nonrefundable fee. As a safety net, bondsmen require someone — usually a family member or friend — to co-sign for the defendant and be liable if he doesn’t make his court dates.

But with pretrial services, defendants who pay nothing also have nothing to lose by skipping court. In the end, it will cost authorities far more if they have to go on a manhunt to retrieve these skippers.

Pretrial services should be reserved for the indigent, rather than the already strapped taxpayers.