I notice that PBUS is running
a story that highlights a statement by a prosecutor saying mass incarceration
is an “urban legend.” Since PBUS chose to highlight it, you’d think that the prosecutor’s
argument has something to do with jails and bail, but it doesn’t. No, it’s
about prisons and sentencing.
I’m always confused when bail
people broaden the issue to start talking about who should be in prison and
why. You know, depending on the source, only about 3-5% of defendants
nationally will ever go to prison. The rest, having spent some short or long
period in jail, will come right back into our neighborhoods. Those of us in
bail who talk about “mass” or “over” incarceration aren’t necessarily talking
about prison, so I’m not sure why PBUS would even care. No, we’re talking about
jails – who should be in jail and why.
Frankly, I’m also confused
when people who supposedly feel strongly about the right to bail keep bringing
up reasons for why they think most people should be locked up. I don’t think that
it’s bail agents saying this, even though this latest thing came from PBUS, the
“voice of the bail agent.” I think it’s the bail insurance people, who have
somehow wrapped up bail reform with the overall dysfunction underlying the
conservative versus liberal debate in America. But really, the fact that PBUS would
say that most people need to be locked up goes to a deeper issue, which is the fact
that bail insurance people apparently don’t know very much about bail.
That prison/jail error isn’t
unique to bail insurance companies; it’s just that they should know better. For
example, not too long ago, after Dwyane Wade’s cousin was shot, a bunch of
people on a news show I was watching were complaining about sentencing. Three
or four different people lamented the fact that the suspects who shot Wade’s
cousin shouldn’t have even been out of prison to begin with – apparently, they had
been released early for different reasons. Ultimately, though, the reporter
asked someone what they were going to do to solve the problem, and he said,
“We’re going to ask for higher bond amounts.” I expect this kind of solution from
people who don’t know anything about bail.
But do you get it? It was a sentencing
issue, and people thought they could somehow solve it through bail. But you don’t
solve sentencing issues through bail. And a lot of people, including,
apparently, the bail insurance dudes, somehow think that you can. For whatever
reason, I think the insurance companies just don’t like people. They certainly
don’t like criminals. And I think they have an honest belief that these people
need to be punished for a really long time. But what they don’t know is that
bail is not the place to do that.
I can deal with a bail agent
who tells me that he believes in the right to bail so much that even the
highest risk and most violent defendant deserves to be able to mount a defense
outside of jail. What I can’t deal with is a bail insurance company
simultaneously saying that nobody is non-violent and that we need to lock
everyone up, but then fighting to release everyone so long as they have money. It’s
like they’re saying, “We really love bail, except for all those pesky
releases.”
Bail agents, I don’t think
that the insurance companies or the overpaid lobbyists they hire really even
know your core beliefs. As I’ve said before, you guys were the answer when
America faced a serious jail over-incarceration issue back in the 1800s. We’re facing a similar issue today, and you
could be part of that answer, too. Unfortunately, the insurance people don’t
know how even to begin to talk about it. Apparently, they’re thinking about
prisons, when they should be thinking about jails.
