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Answering the Bail Industry Arguments Against Bail Reform
All over America, people have been demanding real bail reform including but not limited to ending the practice of cash bail.
Bail exists because “innocent until proven guilty” is a bedrock principle of our criminal justice system.
Originally, bail was intended only as a means of ensuring that accused people showed for their court dates, but now it’s become a complex set of procedures supporting a $ 2-billion industry. Way too often, bail and the resulting conditions can be used as a means of extorting defendants and to keep innocent people in jail.
So what is cash bail?
Cash bail is when a judge decides to assign a cash amount as the price for an accused defendant to be released from jail on their own recognizance or with conditions.
When a typical person is arraigned they are assigned bail amounts that are usually always higher than what they can afford to pay so they often turn to bail bonds companies for assistance.
Bail bonds companies agree to provide “surety” (or a guarantee) that the total bail amount will be paid if the accused does not in return for their remaining court dates.
