Cash Bail effed up if true

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Does it ever strike you how freaking messed up it is that we have a cash bail system in the USA?

When I was a child, I read about Debtor's Prison in Dickensian England. I couldn't comprehend it. How perverse was it to just lock people in jail for not having money?

But Cash Bail is a real thing. They deadass say "You are allowed to leave this prison cell if you hand over a wad of cash. If not, you're staying here." And that's before a trial. Before twelve honest citizens say "guilty" or "not guilty". And your boss won't accept "I was in jail" as a reason to not show up to work, so if you don't have enough money to pay to be presumed innocent you lose the job that you would need to pay to be innocent until proven guilty.

It's frelled up dystopian nonsense that we have legal punishments that just consist of flat fees! So if you're rich, you can run as many red lights as you want, drink in public as much as you want, and never see any real consequence. If you're middle class, it'll ruin your week or month. If you're poor, it means you have to hand over everything. And then if you can't pay, you get locked up for it.

Debtor's prison never ended. Workhouses never ended. Charging people with Being A Pauper never ended.

[J!!]

Bail-bonds are only issued when someone's considered a flight risk by the court, as a form of collateral to make sure they show up for trial, at which point the money is returned to them. I'm fairly certain that the defendant's economic situation is supposed to be taken into account when setting the amount.

That's not to say that the system is without criticism.

from wikipedia:

The 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution states, "Excessive bail shall not be required", thus establishing bail as a constitutionally-protected right.[58] What constitutes "excessive" is a matter of judicial discretion, and bail can be denied if the judge feels that it will not aid in forcing the accused back to trial. Money bail is the most common form of bail in the United States and the term "bail" often specifically refers to such a deposit,[59]:2 but other forms of pre-trial release are permitted; this varies by state.

Many states have a "bail schedule" that lists the recommended bail amount for a given criminal charge. At the first court appearance (the arraignment), the judge can set the bail at the amount listed on the schedule or at a different amount based on the specific facts of the crime and the person accused.[60]

A common criticism of bail in the United States is that a suspect's likelihood of being released is significantly affected by their economic status[61] and systemic racial bias.[62] In response, in 2014 New Jersey and Alaska have abolished cash bail for all but a limited number of court cases, while California was to abolish cash bail entirely with effect from October 2019.[63] The California ballot proposition will only go into effect if it is approved by voters in the November 2020 election.[64][65]

In California bail is heavily regulated by the California Penal Code, California Insurance Code and California Code of Regulations. All violations of the aforementioned constitute felony violations via California Insurance Code 1814 - including administrative regulatory codes such as record keeping, how solicitations are conducted, collateral and treatment of arrestees. Under California law it is a crime for a bail bondsman to solicit business at a county jail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail_bond#United_States

see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail_in_the_United_States

[Riedquat]

When I was a child, I read about Debtor's Prison in Dickensian England. I couldn't comprehend it. How perverse was it to just lock people in jail for not having money?

For not repaying money you owed, not just for not having it at all. The problem wasn't debtor's prison per se, but that that unrepayable debt hole was something it was almost impossible to avoid falling in (borrow, steal, or starve being the options) and even harder to get out of for a lot of poor people.

The last couple of decades have seen the consequences of the opposite extreme, being able to take on loads of debt with little consequence for not being able to repay.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I mean, maybe that's true for people like Our Glorious Leader, but for the general populace I think the situation re debt is the same if not worse when it comes to acquire debt or starve.

[Riedquat]

I mean, maybe that's true for people like Our Glorious Leader, but for the general populace I think the situation re debt is the same if not worse when it comes to acquire debt or starve.

Right now maybe, considering how everything has got screwed up this year, and maybe the situation is different in the USA but there certainly has been a large chunk of, at all levels, "want something? Put it on the credit card" and then start crying how tough things are when expected to pay some of it back - people really have confused debt with free money. It's not uncommon to see quite a few new cars parked along the streets in poor areas. And sadly there's been so much of it it's overshadowed and outnumbered those with genuinely no alternative.

[CharlesPhipps]

To be fair, it's actually not a system of bribery. You get the money back if you show up at your court date. The idea is that if you have given 10,000 dollars to the court that you're not going to skip town. The idea of bail is also the idea that also you don't have to spend your entire time IN jail waiting for your trial.

Mind you, virtually everything about America's court system is fucked up on some level but this is one of the milder ones.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

To be fair, it's actually not a system of bribery. You get the money back if you show up at your court date. The idea is that if you have given 10,000 dollars to the court that you're not going to skip town.

And that idea is fundamentally, obviously wrong. If you have one million dollars, or ten million, you can skip town on $10,000 no problem. It's only an incentive to stay around if you're middle class. If you're poor, it's just a pay-to-play presumption of innocence program. It's nothing more or less than evaluating somebody's innocence and right to freedom on the basis of how rich they are.

[CharlesPhipps]

To be fair, it's actually not a system of bribery. You get the money back if you show up at your court date. The idea is that if you have given 10,000 dollars to the court that you're not going to skip town.

And that idea is fundamentally, obviously wrong. If you have one million dollars, or ten million, you can skip town on $10,000 no problem. It's only an incentive to stay around if you're middle class. If you're poor, it's just a pay-to-play presumption of innocence program. It's nothing more or less than evaluating somebody's innocence and right to freedom on the basis of how rich they are.

Yes, which is why judges are supposed to set it to a level that prevents it. They don't because the system is rigged but it's not on its basis.