‘‘excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed."
August 22, 2015 12:29 PM   Subscribe

The Bail Trap
Every year, thousands of innocent people are sent to jail only because they can’t afford to post bail, putting them at risk of losing their jobs, custody of their children — even their lives.

Previously: Memorize a landline number RIGHT NOW
posted by andoatnp (23 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
God, what bullshit. A fucking straw. For his coke.
posted by notsnot at 12:43 PM on August 22, 2015 [4 favorites]


John Oliver also recently did a show on the bail system. FanFare link (show segment linked in the post).
posted by triggerfinger at 12:45 PM on August 22, 2015 [4 favorites]


I lost all faith in our criminal system after working in it for a year. I don't know what the purpose is of our criminal system but "justice" isn't in it. It seems to be wealth-extraction and mass social control through incarceration. Bails are a part of that. There are supposedly legal standards for imposing bail but like the rest of our criminal system those rules don't exist practically speaking at the trial court level. Imposition of bail is nearly automatic and without concern for the destruction it can create in a poor persons life. And the rules attached seem designed to do nothing but make it harder to pay the damned thing.
posted by 1adam12 at 12:56 PM on August 22, 2015 [19 favorites]


A fucking straw.

You can make a pipe out of aluminum foil. Or out of an apple. Why are the cops not staking out the grocery store, arresting people for "possession of drug paraphernalia"? Hmmm.
posted by thelonius at 12:56 PM on August 22, 2015 [5 favorites]


I lost all faith in our criminal system after 2 weeks on jury duty 20 years ago.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:06 PM on August 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


The cop who arrested a guy for having a straw for a can of Coke needs to lose his job and pension.
posted by pracowity at 2:16 PM on August 22, 2015 [13 favorites]


There are no words more aggravating to a public defender than "based on the affiant's knowledge, training, and experience."
posted by enjoymoreradio at 2:24 PM on August 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


The cop who arrested a guy for having a straw for a can of Coke needs to lose his job and pension.

And freedom. And hope.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:27 PM on August 22, 2015 [4 favorites]


Ugh that thing from the previously, on not being able to call cell phones collect.

What the fuck? It's not that i don't know any landline numbers by memory, it's that no one i know including my parents and family have landlines anymore! The only landline i know of is my work.

That's effectively saying "You can't call anyone you know, unless you memorized the number of your lawyers office or a bail bonds shop". I guess most places have those on a list next to the phone besides LA county, but what the fuck, i can't call my parents?
posted by emptythought at 3:17 PM on August 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Ugh, the story about the mother in a domestic violence shelter arrested for leaving her daughter in the care of a friend there while she went to get diapers is making by blood boil. How does the judge who set that bail look at themselves in the mirror? How does the prosecutor who asked for bail on the basis Children's Services report, which was about the abusive boyfriend which caused her to be in the shelter in the first place, look at themselves in the mirror?

It makes me want to march down to the courthouse first thing Monday morning, find the prosecutors and judges doing these same things to people in my area and ask them what the hell they're doing.
posted by Reverend John at 3:46 PM on August 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


I talked about my own experience with the bail system on the Blue previously and even then, yes, you had better have a landline memorized. I remember trying so hard to find a landline number to reach my family when I was in jail.
posted by Kitteh at 3:52 PM on August 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


Ugh that thing from the previously, on not being able to call cell phones collect.

At least in Orange County, CA, (which neighbors LA county), they do have a system for the inmates to call cell numbers collect. This is the Orange County Sheriff's Dept., and I was present when this happened to a friend of mine.

You get an automated call on your cell phone, and it says that an inmate at whatever jail is trying to contact you. It gives instructions on how to call another number and enter a credit card number. You can choose to put $25 or $100 into an account, and then the inmate can call you back and the account will be debited $6 for each call, no matter how long you talk. If the money runs out, you get the original message to call the other number and deposit more funds. It's convoluted, but it seems to work pretty well.

Also, the person in question had no trouble finding a bail bondsman to bail him out, and they even got my friend into a conference call with the inmate to discuss the particulars.
posted by Huck500 at 5:46 PM on August 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


Where does the balance go?

Convenience charge
posted by thelonius at 6:07 PM on August 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


Where does the balance go?

Away.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:10 PM on August 22, 2015 [14 favorites]


It might be $6.25, and is one of many examples I saw while helping deal with this situation of how poor people are treated like crap in our society. The first person you talk to in the jail I visited was behind mirrored, bulletproof glass so you couldn't see his face... They had to place signs that tell you where the person is so you know where to talk.
posted by Huck500 at 7:52 PM on August 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Part of the problem is we use bail as a stand in for stability. Like, I've been released on recognizance, (protesting, largely) but I have no criminal record and friends and family with no criminal record, so they figure I'll show up. But someone without that network gets high bail, because the judge thinks they don't respect the law and won't come back unless it hurts. So they actually want bail that's more than people can easily afford so they come back for the money.

But I also know I'd never be arrested for half the things here, because they know I'd be suing them. And they know that - so they pick on people who don't to make their quotas. It's fucked up from top to bottom.
posted by corb at 9:19 PM on August 22, 2015 [8 favorites]


For relatively low bail amounts — say, below $2,000, the range in which most New York City bails fall — the second option often doesn’t even exist; bondsmen can’t make enough money from such small bails to make it worth their while.

I never realized this, suddenly these stories make a lot more sense. I often wondered why these people left in jail for ages over a 1500 dollar bond didn't just pay a bondsman 150 dollars and get out. I know it sucks to lose $150, but surely they could come up with that much easier than $1500.
posted by TedW at 3:57 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


I never realized this, suddenly these stories make a lot more sense. I often wondered why these people left in jail for ages over a 1500 dollar bond didn't just pay a bondsman 150 dollars and get out. I know it sucks to lose $150, but surely they could come up with that much easier than $1500.

It's not just as simple as 10% cash anymore. You need someone with a job who can afford the full amount to be your guarantor and they need to provide collateral. The bail bondsmen have effectively absolved themselves of all risks and have become rentiers.
posted by Talez at 7:23 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


I have posted bond for people in the past using my house as collateral. It is ridiculously easy; just show up with ID and a current property tax assessment and you're good to go (after an hour or more while the jailers do 5 minutes of paperwork). If you live in a different county it gets more complex, but still can be done within a day or so. And this just goes to show how the justice system is biased toward those with assets, and how decades of housing discrimination (in large part by the government, as described by Ta-Nehisi Coates in his essay on reparations and many other places) has insured that minorities, particularly Afrcan-Americans, get treated as second class citizens by their own government.
posted by TedW at 7:52 AM on August 23, 2015


I've seen in cook county that if you can make bail it goes to your public defender or other fees and fines for the cost of bringing you in. The same judge was implicated on similar shenanigans here from 2013 where with this judge if you posted bail you were not allowed a public defender in many cases.
posted by AlexiaSky at 10:23 AM on August 23, 2015


Is there a reason why prisoners can't make a call for free? Do they also charge them for the meals they eat and the water they flush down the toilet and the air that they breathe and the heating and cooling of their cells? Because every prisoner needs to make at least one call (and more reasonably three or four) as a normal part of ensuring that the prisoner is treated justly. In fact, there should be an ombudsman waiting there to place a call for you if you don't have the money or don't know who to call. The goal is to ensure that justice is served, right?

In the increasingly profit-oriented US justice system, you need to make lawyers work harder to help people who aren't rich. Lawyers should be competing for the chance to defend each low-income prisoner who shows up at every jail every day, maybe because a certain amount of pro bono work each financial quarter is one absolute requirement of maintaining your license to practice law.
posted by pracowity at 2:49 AM on August 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


Actually I am informed by a friend who did time in Texas that they only pay for 2 meals a day and make the prisoners pay for the third meal if they want it. No shit.
posted by corb at 6:17 AM on August 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


privatization >>>
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:17 AM on August 24, 2015


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