Jeffrey Clayton of the American Bail Coalition addresses the California Insurance Commissioner
Jeffrey Clayton of the American Bail Coalition recently addressed Dave Jones, California Insurance Commissioner, regarding bail in California. In an eloquent plea to lawmakers and the commissioner, Mr. Clayton addresses the true issues underlying a broken criminal justice system. Diagnosing the problem requires a deeper analysis and a deeper understanding of where the problems exist. As Mr. Clayton explains, the problem is not in bail itself. Bail is constitutional and has been looked at many times by jurisdictions across the country. Bail is truly the oldest evidence based type of release and has proven successful throughout its tenure. Getting rid of cash bail completely only creates more problems. Mr. Clayton suggests that many of the issues may reside in Due Process as opposed to bail itself.
Two main issues appear as you begin to diagnose the true problem underlying our criminal justice system: market imbalance and inconsistency in bail setting. As Mr. Clayton notes, California is a buyers’ market as it relates to bail. Bail in California is set extraordinarily high and most people could not afford bail without the assistance of a bail agent. Bail agents are consistently charging less and less to post bail which creates an inevitable “race to the bottom.” This “race to the bottom” creates unhealthy competition that often violates state resolutions. Additionally, chaos in the current bail schedule. Judges are setting bails at exorbitant rates without consistency. Many believe that the “race to the bottom” has encouraged judges to set higher bails as people are now able to bail out at such a low amount even in very high risk cases. Consistency in the bail schedule, perhaps a statewide bond schedule could help resolve this problem according to the American Bail Coalition. Finally, Mr. Clayton suggests that improvements to the California Penal Code must be made to reflect the issues plaguing our system.
The American Bail Coalition, through Mr. Clayton, concedes that bail is not for everybody. There may be alternatives such as OR release or pre-trial monitoring that may be a better fit for some people, but eliminating bail is not the answer.