Bail reform could give justice to poor, minorities
I think most people with more than a passing acquittance with the bail systems in most states could agree with the title, but what I have not seen are any proposed solutions that address the underlying problems certain characteristics of our bail systems are meant to address.<p>For example, without the threat of forfeiture how do you ensure people actually show up to court?<p>Without bail bondsmen how do you fund the extra police&#x2F;marshals&#x2F;sheriffs to find and arrest those who do not show up for court?<p>Without the ability to set bond amounts based upon offense characteristics and individual financial circumstances and criminal history, how do you prevent especially violent offenders with a likelihood of committing more violent acts while on pretrial release from committing new violent offenses? Keep in mind there are some jurisdictions where you are constitutionally entitled to bail of some amount.<p>There is much (justified) lamenting on the evils of the use of the bail bond industry, but after bail reform in the Federal system which effective ended the use of the industry for the Federal criminal system -- do people really think the Federal system is better? If so why?<p>If you want to go the other direction and eliminate money bail, do you really want to police&#x2F;prosecution to able to indefinitely incarcerate people until trial?<p>Do you want to seriously jack up the criminal penalties for failure to appear in lieu of money forfeiture? That is going to screw over a lot of people.<p>Again, there are serious problems, but I haven&#x27;t heard significantly better solutions.