Ever been arrested? If you’re a loyal follower of this blog I doubt it, mostly because there aren’t many amateur economists/criminals out there. But maybe you got a DUI when you were young or got busted for that little bit of pot in your car. Sometimes you don’t have to post bail when you are arrested, but the more serious the crime is, the more likely, and larger amount your bail will be.
And what exactly is bail? When you’re arrested, you don’t immediately go to trial. You have two options usually, you can stay in jail, or you can leave. To leave, you will likely have to post bail. Sometimes you here about bail being set at $X for someone that’s been in the news for being arrested. For example, Bernie Madoff’s bail was set at $10 million. For small crimes, bail might be just $1000. It depends on two things, the severity of the crime, and the risk of flight. The risk of flight is the risk that you will try to leave the country, or at least not show up for trial.
So the bail is basically collateral. If your bail is set at $10,000, you give the court $10,000 to get out of jail. If you show up to court, you get your money back. If you skip out, you don’t, and the court keeps your money.
But many times, those that are arrested don’t have enough money to post bail. Perhaps that’s why they committed their crime in the first place. That’s where bail bondsmen come in.
A bail bondsman is the best and worst friend to a criminal with no money. A bondsman will front the money to get you out of jail, but they aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They still require 10% – 20% of the bail from you, and no that doesn’t go towards your bail, that’s their fee. So your bail is $10,000 you’ll have to put up $1,000 and if you skip out on court the bondsman is going to come after you for the $1,000 fee plus the $10,000 bail.
Which brings me to my next point. Bail bondsmen will come after you. When they get you out of jail, they’re essentially promising the court that you will show up. When you sign on the dotted line for them to get you out, you also sign over some legal rights. For example, a bondman can come into your house and rummage through your stuff if you don’t show up to court. No need for warrants or prior warnings. They can take possession of you, essentially arresting you, if they find you. If you’ve see Dog the Bounty Hunter, this is why he can arrest the people he does. These people posted bail through a bondsman and didn’t show up to court. The bondsman works with a bounty hunter to try and track you down so he can get his money back from you.
But why let a criminal out of jail in the first place? Why not just hold them until trial? If trial happened the next day, or even the next week, that might make since sense. But the judicial system allows for a fair trial which gives the defense (and prosecution) time to gather evidence and witnesses. Trials can be pushed back months, and in some cases years depending on the circumstances. There are two reasons not to keep someone in jail for this time.
1st, in the United States you are assumed innocent until proven otherwise. It is unfair to keep someone in jail. But at the same time you need to make sure they show up for trial, which is the point of bail.
2nd, it’s expensive to keep people in jail. Estimates vary and change from location to location, but I’d say $100 a day is the minimum cost per criminal. And the more arrests you have the more facilities you need. Since taxpayer money goes to keep them in jail, and criminals are innocent until proven guilty, the bail system seems to make sense.
But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Far from it. If you check your local paper, you’re bound to find an article once in a while that talks about the relationship between bondsmen and the court system. It’s not always the case, but since bondsmen are always located near the courts and have lots of interaction with them, it’s no doubt relationships sometimes get friendlier. Bondsmen are sometimes able to negotiate the amount of bail down when you don’t show up. So again, if you don’t show up and the bondsman must pay $10,000, they might negotiate to half that. Still though, they’re insured against these losses so the insurer will share some or all of the burden.
Researching how this system works was very interesting for me. As I’ve never been arrested and am not active in anything that could put me there, I don’t expect to learn from this first hand. But I love watching crime shows and always wonder exactly how this system works. The guy that robbed a gas station probably didn’t have $5,000 for bail so I didn’t really know why they would make him pay.
What started out as a learning exercise for how bail works, has me on a new tangent, how we can make jail cheaper. We’ll come back to that another day perhaps. Throw some ideas in the comments and if you’ve ever been arrested I’d love to read about your experience with bail.
 By The Weakonomist |
The Weakonomist is the founder of Weakonomics. Clicking the picture of the puppy will tell you more about him. If you like what you're reading consider subscribing to the blog, following him on Twitter, and checking out the related posts below. Please consider a donation if you really enjoy Weakonomics. Also keep in mind that nothing I say can be construed as financial advice. |
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You’d want to use your one call to the Sheconomist, not a bondsman, so she can shop around for you and see what percentages are charged, who takes cash only, go to the ATM, etc. Bondsmen can otherwise get away with not having very competitive rates and the main thing they do to compete with one another is have names that start with as many A’s as possible because they figure someone sitting in jail will dial the first number they see in the phone book.