Keep Bailing

The U.S. Department of Justice released information according to a study they conducted that found the overall jail population is at a decline as “commercial bail” (or use of bail bondsmen) continues to increase.

The jail population, overall, has declined from 2007 to 2009.

According to Michael Hough, a public safety fellow through the American Legislative Exchange Council, better known as ALEC stated, “This latest study disproves the myth that the use of bail bonds increases the number of people in jail. We now know that this connection cannot be made. The increased use of commercial bail can actually help to alleviate overcrowding in jails.”

An earlier study conducted by the Department of Justice, revealed that the number of individuals who were released from jail on a commercial bail bond, since 1992, increased by 100 percent.

Currently, over 40 percent of individuals released from jail are bailed out via a bail bondsman.

In 2009, the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies, a lobbying association for the elimination of commercial bail bonds, released a report that claimed Read more »

All across America, states are running out of ways to combat prison overcrowding. Prisons are like dams that threaten to break, with an inmate overflow that will be impossible to contain. Many people feel the last two decades of the 20th century were the point at which prison overcrowding began to accelerate faster than states could keep up.

During those times, states tried to fight rising crime rates by meting out stiffer sentences. This tactic did reduce criminal activity, but it also sent jail populations skyrocketing . Recent early release programs that were intended to combat the financially devastating inmate-influx have been sharply criticized by police and the public.

In California, where the state’s 33 prisons are designed to hold 85,000 inmates, these detention centers are packed to the gills with 160,000 men and women — almost double the amount! But at last, there may be a solution to this situation, born from what some might see as an unlikely source: Read more »