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As someone not from America, and having never gone to jail, what is this?
Someone has already explained the mechanics of bail to you but from a cultural perspective it's important to note that someone going to one of these storefront bail bondsmen is interpreted as a sign that you are
in an awful lot of trouble
probably a person to avoid because your problems will have a tendency to become my problems
broke enough that you're willing to pay punitive interest in order to stay out of jail
Normally I'd be all on my soapbox about how the bail system essentially means that poor people get punished more for the same crimes and shit like that but this guy really is an absolute monster. Back in the 90s everyone loved him for "cleaning up New York City" using the twin powers of aggressively racist policing and violence against homeless people. After 9/11 they all but made him a saint, started calling him "America's Mayor" and shit like that, but those of us who had been paying attention knew that he was a shit leader and a shit person who was benefiting from the fact that we needed someone to rally behind after the tragedy that was the 9/11 attacks. Watching him be exposed for the grifter and criminal that he always was has been cathartic for a lot of people.
To expand on why this isn't a good look - bail bondsmen typically charge a non-refundable 10% of bail. So if you're a former mayor who shit on your own legacy by trying to overthrow the government and your bail is set at $150,000 that means you're paying a bail bondsman $15,000 that you won't get back ever. That $15,000 is a fee that they apply in case they need to hire a bounty hunter to drag your delinquent ass to court.
A person usually tries pretty hard to raise bail without paying a bondsman because they don't want to lose that 10%. So this is basically the equivalent of Giuliani going to a Payday Loans lender to get an advance on his paycheck at a predatory rate.
Yeah just thought the pay day loans comparison from another comment.
So so you get your bond back normally if you don't break the terms of the bond? And this way they lose that deposit but they may only have 15k not 150k.
Yeah normally you get the full amount of bail back from the court. The 10% fee is what a bondsman charges as interest / risk of your fleeing.
Yeah, The problem isn't the bondsman. A 10% fee to front $100k that could go poof if the perp decides to flee is reasonable, imo. The problem is cash bail in the first place. The only time it should be used is if there's a reasonable risk of the person fleeing. Instead we use it for each and every criminal regardless, just to fuck them over.
I'm not going to flee the country cause I got busted with a little weed but they'll still stick you with a $5000 bond. Not to mention people that are wrongly arrested and charged. They have to come up with a ton of money, pay a bondsman, or sit in jail. All because some asshole cop decided to wrongly arrest you.