Introduction
Much debate has been around the income and bail bond system in the United States. There have been expressed concerns of inequality among detainees based on their wealth and possession. Criminal justice system in the United States is confronted with the increasing number of the incarcerated population. The focus of the paper will be on presenting the arguments why the bail bond systems do not work for low income defendants. The fairness of the criminal systems has been questioned based on the disproportionate affect the bail bond has on the poor detainees.
Bail bond system
Bail bond payment is a money payment for the defendant’s release from jail, before the beginning of the court procedures. They are intended to incentivize defendants to appear at the court for the court ruling. The majority of them are returned to the defendant after the case has been dispositioned. They also work as the reduction in the possible criminal risk of returning a defendant back to the community. It is a guarantee that defendants will come to the court hearings (Council of Economic Advisers, 2015). The jurisdiction in the United States does not have the “adequate screening or pretrial monitoring programs in place, judicial officials continue to rely on money bail as a release option” (Justice Policy Institute, 2012, 17). The Americas ranks the first place based on the number of pretrial detainees per 100.000 general populations. The rate of the detention was 137 per 100.000, which goes much on the fact of the increasing number of detainees that are unable to pay the bail (Shaw, 2008). The country maintains the highest rate of incarceration in the world. 30% of all imprisoned people in the world are found in the United States. The reason for the higher rate of imprisonment is also pretrial detention and they compromise the majority of the jail population. In comparison to the past the fewer detainees were granted a bail and even fewer could afford to pay it. The court must consider various factors prior setting a bail: the amount must be sufficiently high to provide an assurance that the defendant will appear at the trail and court hearing, the amount is not to be used as an a oppressive, the nature of the circumstances of the offence committed, the ability to make bail and taken into account the safety of the community (Johnson & Johnson, 2012).
Flaws of bail bond system
Based on the Council of Economic Advisers (2015) the criminal justice system in the United States of America disproportionately affects the poor. The number of detainees has grown also in the account of the poor being unable to pay the fixed bail bonds that are put as a condition to the pretrial release. The council has come to a conclusion that the jail population “often results in localities detaining the poorest rather the most dangerous defendants” (Council of Economic Advisers, 2015, 1). Fixed payment in the criminal system does not consider the ability to pay, but are predetermined based on the felonies committed. With this the regressive penalties are being imposed which result in more punishment for the poor as for the wealthier defendants. The impact the bail has on the individuals is disproportionate. The payment of the debt to the criminal justice is one of the factors that can contribute to the incarceration since around 20% of jail inmates were imprisoned since they could not pay the debts. The use of the bail has been on the increase and along also the increase of fines and fees for bail bonds. For comparison, from 1990 has the percentage of defendant assigned fees grown from 53 to 72 % in the year 2009. The use of the bail has been more widely used and the number of defendants held on bail has been increasing from the year 1990 onward. The same trend is seen in the finical release. Nonfinancial release has been on the decline. The average financial guaranty and bail payment has grown in the same years for around 46% and the average amount today is at $61.000. The poor cannot afford to pay even the lowest bails and the trend of pretrial detentions has been on the increase among the poor. The poor do not have savings and the ones who manage to pay the bail usually relay on the savings of their family members that would be spent for the basic resources and needs, which is causing further poverty among poor defendants. The increase of bail is not justifiable based on the non-appearing before the court since the rate of re-appearing in the proceedings has increased. “The fact that the pre-trail arrest rates have not declined while pretrial detention has increased, suggests that current bail policies may not be improving the safety of communities” (Council of Economic Advisers, 2015, 8). Pretrial detainees are based on the Shaw (2008) more likely to be poor and unable to afford lawyers and without the necessary resources to deposit a predetermined bail and deriving from this fact it is impossible to say that the criminal justice system is equitable and fair. The pre-trial detention results in greater public costs and overcrowding of the prisons. Many of US citizens are faced with consequences of pre-trail detention. The reason the poor cannot pay the bail is usually lack of money for the bail or to hire a lawyer, they are without social and political connections and influence. The poor are staying in detention because they do not have the necessary resources.
The costs
Another issue is also the growing number of the incarcerated population that has in 2015 been at 2.2 million. Crime is one of the contributors to the higher costs of society. A number of the pretrial un-convicted jail inmates have been increasing and has grown in 18 years by 59%. One third of the defendants are held on bail prior to the court proceedings (Council of Economic Advisers, 2015). Based on the United States Courts (2013, n. p.) “the pretrial detention for defendant was 10 times more expensive than the cost of supervision of a defendant by a pretrial service officer in the federal system”. The pretrial detention results in high expanses in comparison to the supervision. Daily pretrial detention costs $73.03, $2.221.22 monthly and annually $26.654.69 where supervision would cost $7.24 daily and $220.29 monthly (United States Courts, 2013).
The high costs of the pre-trail daintiness results beside the high social costs also in the overcrowding of the prisons and also in the impacts it leaves on the individual detainee. The cases with a lower bail amount have dropped. Since the year 1998 onward the amount of bail under the $5.000 have dropped and the bail amount between $5.000 and $9.999 and $10.000 and $24.999 have increased. The increasing bail amounts pose a threat to the lower income populations that are becoming disadvantaged and feel pressured to face plea bargain (Justice Policy, 2012). The average bail amount for felonies is based on the type of felony. The higher the bail the higher the felony or crime has been assumed to commit. From the high numbers we can see that the poor can rarely afford to pay such big amounts of money and are therefore in unequal place in comparison to the wealthier detainees. The controversy of the bails remains present in the country.
Consequences of inability to pay bail bond
The Justice policy (2012) has reported that people held in pretrial are more likely to end up with worse trial outcomes than the ones awaiting the trail free. The first is more likely to be convicted of felony and receive longer sentences. The poor that usually cannot pay the bill lose their jobs, income, homes or custody over children. The ones who cannot afford the bail are deprived in various different ways. There are various consequences that result out of the inability to pay bail. VERA Institute for Justice (2015) report has shown that 62% of the jail inmates in 2013 were un-convicted. The low risk defendants that were detained before trial are more likely to receive a sentence of imprisonment, less favorable plea agreements and longer prison sentences (VERA Institute for Justice, 2015). Pretrial detention has a negative impact on the sentencing decisions. In the criminal process, there are ones that can afford and others who cannot afford to be released based on the bail since they do not have the finical means. Criminal processing has seen the fact that the defendants with better socioeconomic status can afford the bail while the low socioeconomic defendants cannot afford to post bail money, and therefore stay at the prison until the court hearing. Today the fact that was presumed in the past that dangerous defendants are staying detained is not true since defendants stay locked because they are poor. The bail hearings are held within days or hours of arrest, which shows that judges have little information of future prediction and behavior of the defendant. The critics of the criminal systems go in the direction that they are widening the gap between the poor and rich, and also between the Black and Withe Offenders (McCoy, Kazemian, Sacks, 2012). The consequences of inability to pay the bail are seen on the individual, local and national levels.
Conclusion
The poor are not put in the same circumstances in the criminal justice system in the country since it is more likely that the lack of income will result in defendant remain in the custody because many cannot afford to pay the sated bail. The disproportional place of the poor contributes to the high rate of the incarceration in the world. The bail imposed in the country has many critics, since the poor cannot afford to pay it and are therefore unequally to the wealthier citizens. The high bail is further contributing to the poverty because many defendants get the money from family and they use the money to bail that was meant for the basic living items. The temporary freedom has various consequences for the individual, the family, community and on the national budget. The regressive nature of the bail bond system and high costs connected with the pretrial detainment are the most common critics of today’s system. It seems that the bail bond system is not working for the poor, since they cannot afford to pay the bail or if they do they get themselves in even higher debt that can lead in the future to even greater problems. The purpose of the sated bail is for the defendant to come to trail and form manly low crimes defendants it is not fair to stay imprisoned only because they lack the resources to pay the bail. There have been various debates about the system and it is highly possible that in the future changes in this area will follow.
Work Cited
Council of Economic Advisers Issue Brief. 2015. Fines, Fees, and Bail. Retrieved https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/1215_cea_fine_fee_bail_issu e_brief.pdf
Johnson, Marcia, Johnson, Anthony Luckett. 2012. Bail: Reforming Policies to Address Overcrowded Jails, the Impact of Race on Detention, and Community Revival in Harris Country, Texas. Northwest Journal of Law & Social Policy 7(1). Retrieved http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&con text=njlsp
Justice Policy Institute. 2012. Bail Fail: Why the U.S. Should End the Practice of Using Money for Bail. Retrieved http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/bailfail.pdf
McCoy, Candace, Kazemian, Lila, Sacks, Meghan. “Does Law Matter? An Old Bail Law Confronts the New Penology”. Punishment & Society 15(1): 43-70.
United States Courts. 2013. Supervision Costs Significantly Less Than Incarceration in Federal System. Retrieved http://www.uscourts.gov/news/2013/07/18/supervision- costs-significantly-less-incarceration-federal-system
Shaw, Mark. 2008. Pretrial Detention. Retrieved https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/Justice_Initiati.pdf
VERA Institute of Justice. 2015. Incarceration’s Front Door: the Misuse of Jails in America. Retrieved http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/incarcerations- front-door-report.pdf
