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Socialistpiggy t1_j2a1agd wrote

Reply to comment by HanaBothWays in California deputy killed by driver, suspect dies in shootout by cloud_coder

Bail is a little bit more nuanced than people make it out to be. Entirely eliminating bail or severely restricting it's use leads to what has happened in New York. There is still a place for bail.

I absolutely agree, INITIALLY you are either a threat/flight risk or you are not. If you aren't a risk, you get released without bail. But, what if you are released and you don't show up to court? What then? Warrant, back to jail. Should that person then have to sit there until trial? No, generally they should get offered bail. So, they bail for say $250. Still don't show up to court. Warrant, eventually back to jail. Well, now they have to bail for $1,000. So, they do, still fail to show up to court and once again a warrant is issued and they are back in jail. They either rinse and repeat, bail and show up, or stay incarcerated until their trial date.

Another example of when bail might be appropriate is perhaps someone is arrested for their 9th open offense. They have three different trespass cases, five shoplifting cases and a minor drug offense. Through this process of book and constant release, they are missing court date after court date. They get picked back up, back to jail, new court date issued, back out on the street. They are forever just pushing out their court dates and never appearing. Maybe, on this new minor shoplifting offense, it's time a judge sets bail?

There are a lot of people in society that have nothing to lose, or just don't care, and will not show up to court. There's also people who posting $100 bail is a massive incentive enough to show to court, so they get their $100' back. Outright saying we should eliminate all cash bail fails to address the systemic issue of incentivizing people to show up to court when they outright refuse to.

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HanaBothWays t1_j2a3gv6 wrote

> There are a lot of people in society that have nothing to lose, or just don’t care, and will not show up to court.

There aren’t, really. For the vast majority of people, picking up and leaving their homes, jobs, families, communities, and/or social circles is just not feasible.

> There’s also people who posting $100 bail is a massive incentive enough to show to court, so they get their $100’ back.

Those kind of people don’t have the resources to skip town over an offense so minor they could pay their way out of pre-trial detention for $100. And it’s usually more than that, like a few hundred at least. For me that’s not a whole lot of money and even I don’t have the wherewithal to skip town and go on the lam.

> Outright saying we should eliminate all cash bail fails to address the systemic issue of incentivizing people to show up to court when they outright refuse to.

Most people will do this. Some people have difficulty doing this for transportation/childcare/job reasons which is a whole other issue and those people would have trouble paying bail anyway. Some people who have a lot of money may skip out - those kind of people should be treated as a flight risk and it may be appropriate to put them on monitored house arrest. Then there are folks who don’t show up because they are in a whole other jurisdiction, perhaps detained/incarcerated there for some other reason, or the court just has the wrong address for them, and the system is not too forgiving about this kind of thing. Ask a defense attorney or public defender.

The number of people who just say “fuck it” and don’t show up is pretty small.

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Socialistpiggy t1_j2a957j wrote

>The number of people who just say “fuck it” and don’t show up is pretty small.

You still fail to come up with a way to address the underlying problem that bail is trying to address. And I believe you are severely underestimating the amount of people who refuse to show up to court. The system doesn't have to worry about people that have a home, job families or social circles. Those people already show up to court - or generally don't commit crimes at the rates I'm speaking about. We are talking about people who have 15, 20, 25, 30 arrests in the past 10 years.

>Most people will do this. Some people have difficulty doing this for transportation/childcare/job reasons which is a whole other issue and those people would have trouble paying bail anyway. Some people who have a lot of money may skip out - those kind of people should be treated as a flight risk and it may be appropriate to put them on monitored house arrest.

The people we are talking about don't have permanent addresses. They stay with other people, couch surf, frequently evicted, etc. The individuals I'm talking about don't have jobs. They frequently change phone numbers because they are disconnected. These individuals are in and out of jail on new offenses.

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HanaBothWays t1_j2akdfy wrote

> The system doesn’t have to worry about people that have a home, job families or social circles.

I don’t know what you are thinking in your head but most of the people who get arrested and charged with crimes are in fact normal people with lives, families, friends, and even jobs. People who break the law are not some anomalous breed of human.

Later on in your post you talk about chronic unemployable types who couch-surf and you’re maybe thinking about folks who don’t have stable housing or employment. They really don’t have the resources to flee or hide from the law.

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Sirlancemehlot t1_j2azzim wrote

>I don’t know what you are thinking in your head but most of the people who get arrested and charged with crimes are in fact normal people with lives, families, friends, and even jobs. People who break the law are not some anomalous breed of human.

Well this just isn't true at all. Its not even close to true. Most people who get arrested have a long history of arrests. How many times have you been arrested? Never? No kidding. The guy who killed the cop in this article:

"The suspect, William Shae McKay, 44, of San Bernardino County, had a long and violent criminal history stretching back to before 2000 that included kidnapping, robbery and multiple arrests for assault with a deadly weapon, including the stabbing of a California Highway Patrol dog, the sheriff said."

Have you ever walked a block in a dangerous neighborhood? Because in a lot of places, 3/4 of the people you pass on the street have criminal records, some of them pages long.

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HanaBothWays t1_j2b1aeg wrote

> Well this just isn’t true at all. Its not even close to true. Most people who get arrested have a long history of arrests.

I would like to know what your basis for this statement is. Where is the data to back this up?

> How many times have you been arrested? Never?

If that’s the case I am, by definition, not in the category of “most people who have been arrested.”

> The guy who killed the cop in this article:

Hold up there. What relevance does this have to “most people who have been arrested?” How do you know where he falls on the bell curve of people who have been arrested at least once?

> Have you ever walked a block in a dangerous neighborhood?

Have you? Most of those people have families, friends, places where they live, and jobs - even if they also have records.

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