In the story, "Bail Bond Bill Will Create Debtor’s
Prisons,” by Bruce Murphy, he asks, “Why are Republicans pushing a bill opposed
almost unanimously by criminal justice professionals?”
Why, indeed? But Wisconsin is not alone. Across
America, big insurance company lobbyists are pushing bills designed to increase
their profit – criminal justice be damned – by backing bills to insert
for-profit bail into the system, or to limit judges in using methods of release
that don’t involve sending business the insurance companies' way. In a quote from District Attorney John Chisholm in the article, “The
return of commercial bail bonds, will primarily benefit out-of-state interests, the large bail-bond
corporations” motivated “purely by financial interests” at the expense of
public safety.
Oh good. Let’s pass it.
But it’s worse than that. I believe that the bail
insurance companies want back into Wisconsin just so they can say that it
represents a “national trend” toward using for-profit bail. In fact, I was
recently at a Senate hearing in another state where the bail lobbyists said
that very thing. Never mind that virtually no one in criminal justice, from
police to judges, feels that for-profit bail has any meaningful value. Never mind that the bail industry tried to get into Wisconsin before, and failed. Wisconsin is just being used to further the interests of
the big bail insurance companies. They have the money, and thus they
have access to politicians who, strangely, will pass criminal justice laws that the whole criminal justice system opposes.
There was a guy at the Senate hearing who said that he
teaches on “best practices” at bail. Unfortunately, he is paid quite well to
say that for-profit bail is a best practice. He is wrong, of course, and
hopefully Wisconsin will rally together to keep this corporate interest out of
criminal justice. Believe me, once they are in Wisconsin, the state will see a barrage
of new laws each year designed to continue increasing the bail industry
profits. It will see a new regulatory bureaucracy necessary to watch over the “problem
child” of regulated occupations. Finally, and most unfortunately, it will see
unnecessary pretrial detention of those who simply cannot afford to pay the
bondsmen’s fee.
Scholars have openly condemned the for-profit bail
industry practically since its inception. Wisconsin should be proud to know that
it was famously enlightened when it abolished the practice in the 70’s.
Read the story. It shows how ALEC, the various bail
insurance companies, and a few lobbyists are using Wisconsin as a pawn in their
American bail strategy – just so they can make a buck.
