Own Recognizance Or Bail Bonds – Who Goes To Court
May 9, 2010
Pretrial Services Vs. Commercial Bail
Is anyone surprised that bail wins? Would you be surprised to know that twice as many defendants on unsecured release failed to make their court date? That is correct: commercial bail (releasing a defendant on bond with a friend and bondsman following up) outperforms pretrial services (releasing a defendant on a promise to appear or their “own recognizance” without a responsibile individual to track the defendant) two to one in getting persons to court.
For 22 years, the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics has been indicating that bail wins, but recently the pretrial services advocates have been trying to make a case to change or eliminate the bail system as we know it. Bail bonds work because they assign responsibility and financial liability to parties who can control the outcome – getting the defendant back to court while allowing them to return to work and freeing up public funds (via jails and staff). This, of course, at no cost to the public.
Now we have another source to prove our point. This comes from this pretrial service’s own records. This particular agency in Houston, Texas is one of the largest and most sophisticated in the country. Bail works twice as well in preventing failures to appear.
Source: Pretrial Services Vs Commercial Bail
May 15th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Bail bonds also help protect defendants’ physical safety. Many jails are overcrowded, dangerous places, and the longer someone is held, the greater the chance for injury or even death.