The commercial free enterprise bail agent has a tremendous ad-vantage over any other type of bail bond because the free enterprise bail agent can go across state lines to secure or arrest defendants who have escaped, saving the counties and states a great deal of money on extradition. In addition, with the free enterprise incentive program, the surety only profits if the defendant goes to court. If the defendant fails to show up for trial, the surety is penalized in one manner or another, either by the court costs or by additional cost to pick the defendant up—or in full payment of a judgment. theory, the surety should be able to recover from the co-signer, how-ever, in practice the bail agent requires extensive periods of time to recover the liquidation of collateral. Liquidation of collateral is not easy and sometimes the collateral will even evaporate. The reality is that the surety must monitor the person on a weekly basis to make sure he is at the same address he gave. The bail agent must send the criminal defendant his court date, and send the defendant’s criminal attorney the court date. The surety must work very closely with other members of the criminal justice system to guarantee the defendant’s appearance. In short, the bail agent’s position in the criminal justice system is much like that of the offensive lineman on a foot-ball team: He does the job, but gets very little acclaim.
The commercial free enterprise bail agent today is normally licensed by state laws. Bail agents have to take license examinations, in some cases go to school, and are very carefully regulated by bail bond boards. A commercial bail agent cannot have a felony against him or a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude.
The free enterprise bail agent has another advantage which benefits taxpayers. He got the defendant out of jail; consequently, he is in a much more objective trust position with the criminal defendant than anyone else in the criminal justice system. There-fore, he can many times “arrest” a man without a problem due to the fact that the criminal defendant may have to use the bail agent again, as long as the criminal defendant is cooperative and can pay the fee that is required. Free enterprise bail agents all have in their agreements items stating that in the event an accused is arrested for any other type of crime other than traffic violations, he can be sur. rendered to the courts and lose the premium he paid. This means that the criminal defendant, while on bail under the scrutiny of the free enterprise bail agent, does not want to commit any additional crime because he knows he can be turned in and lose the premium he has put up to the surety.
The trend of recent years throughout the United States has been carefully to select free enterprise bail agents to serve the criminal justice system and to reduce or eliminate the ten percent deposit plan. The ten percent deposit plan has been thrown out of California after five years of use as a drain on the taxpayer which was nor get-ting accused persons to show up for court. The two states relying totally on public bail face substantial problems in effective law enforcement. In Illinois, we hear continual complaints from police officers, sheriffs, and all parties involved saying that the ten percent plan is nor working. In Kentucky, the jails are completely over-loaded and the direct cost to the taxpayer for their system is as high as $3,400,000.
The commercial surety or the commercial free enterprise bail agent puts the burden strictly on himself as well as the defendant’s family and friends to guarantee that he will go to court. Member-ship requirements for the Professional Bail Agents of the U.S. include a pledge they will never give up a chase and will make sure the fugitive is returned to the community.’ In the Alexander Grant study, commercial bail agents were shown to have a .7% fugitive rate as opposed to a 7.0% fugitive rate for public bail.’ This means that when a person did jump bond, and truly meant to jump bond, the commercial free enterprise bail agents normally got the jumper back within a period of two or three years, while the personal recognizance bond only got him back eight percent of the time. Many personal recognizance and ten percent research projects show a forfeiture rate as high as sixty-six percent with no one paying off.’ Figures from surety companies in their profit/ loss statements indicate that no more than a two percent failure to appear rate can be allowed or they will go broke.’ Consequently, the eight percent rate by the public bonds would indicate that certainty of punishment is not in effect whenever these type of bonds exist. A free enterprise bail company could never exist under these circumstances. Victims are entitled to know where the criminal defendant is at all times, to be protected from the criminal defendant, and to be guaranteed the criminal defendant will go to court. The best method devised so far to guarantee this, and other aspects of equity in the pre-trial criminal justice system, is the free enterprise crime control bail agent.
Commercial free enterprise bail agents have proposed a guaranteed misdemeanor jail reduction program and a felony pro buns program to help indigents, similar to the assigned risk plan used by automobile insurance companies in the United States today. The problems of fighting crime in America and still protecting our freedoms are difficult to balance, but the pre-trial burden must be shouldered by the criminal, his friends and his family. The greatest danger to the free enterprise crime control bail agents and to the victim taxpayers is public bail (exemplified by personal recognizance bonds and the ten percent deposit bonds) which promotes favoritism and cronyism in the criminal justice system and has foisted a fraud on the public with hidden cost to taxpayers. As previously stated in this work, the cost of each public bail bond has been calculated at $356 per defendant, a cost which is borne by the non-criminal taxpayer/victim.” In contrast, the cost of private bail is paid by the accused.