Bail Bond Businesses Banned Elsewhere, But Not in U.S.
Most nations don’t permit bail bond businesses to operate, but they are flourishing in the entrepreneurial United States.
The businesses post bond for accused defendants in exchange for payments, and promise to hunt them down if they fail to show up in court. The system is “remarkably effective,” the New York Times reports, although other countries “almost universally reject and condemn” the trade and groups like the ABA disapprove of it.
Studies by academics and the Justice Department study have found that clients of bail bond companies are more likely to show up in court and more likely to be caught if they flee. More than 40 percent of felony defendants who were released before trial in 2004 had used a bail bond company, an increase of 24 percent over 1994.
Four states—Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon and Wisconsin—have abolished the commercial bail bond system. But other states are more lenient, allowing bounty hunters to break into homes of fleeing defendants without a warrant, capture them, and transport them across state lines.
Critics say bail bond companies have an incentive to collude with lawyers and police to make sure bail is high and low-flight-risk defendants are referred to them. District Attorney Joshua Marquis of Clatsop County, Ore., is one of the critics. “The bail bond system is rife with corruption,” he told the Times.
