In the NPR article about bail bonding, they address the struggles that people face when being held in jail.The reason that people are arrested is because they are breaking a law, and I am a firm believer that breakers of laws should have to pay for whatever laws they break, but when courts get picky about where the money for the fines come from is when I start to find the system ridiculous.
When someone is is jail, they are often given the choice of to pay bail and not have to wait in a jail cell until their court date, which, in today's high- crime society, can be up to a year in major situations. Bondsmen are there to quickly get the money for the fine that some people can't pay right away.
Some argue that the practice of bondsmen should be outlawed- but in the end, it's pretty much a win win situation for all parties involved. The court gets their money, the person convicted of a crime gets to not have to sit in a jail cell for what can be months at a time, and bondsmen make money. it's all that simple.The situation that some fall into that gets to me the most is when homeless people get arrested for a minor crime- like being drunk in public, loitering, or things that lots of people do and don't get arrested for- and they have no money to pay the bail, so they wait in jail for months at a time, only to find out that there is a fine to pay- which they can't pay- and have to go back to jail. In my opinion, the community service system needs more play- if people are given the choice to do community service (and in some cases, it's their only choice) it helps the community around them, as well as paying the consequences for peeing in that one alley or drinking their forty in a park.
Just sayin'.
No comments:
Post a Comment