If you look on the various
websites from the bail insurance companies, they’re full if “shocking” accounts
of so-called dangerous people being let out of jail in New Jersey, presumably in an
attempt to scare people away from bail reform.
Of course, the insurance
companies don’t tell anyone that if the judge would just put a bit of money on
someone’s head, they’d be glad to help them get out of jail no matter how
dangerous they are. We all remember that’s how it worked before, which is why those
companies are getting their hats handed to them lately. Saying that the new way
of doing things is somehow a “public safety concern” when there is nothing that bail
insurance companies do or have ever done to protect the public is pretty sad.
Under New Jersey’s new bail law,
if someone is truly a danger to the public, he or she can be detained without
bail. In the old days, those dangerous people would just pay some money to get
out and – get this – if they broke any laws while they were out on bail, they
wouldn’t even have to forfeit the remainder. That little glitch in the system was
brought to you by – yes, that’s right – the bail insurance companies.
Over the last several
decades, the bail insurance companies have systematically helped to erect a
system that keeps them as far away from defendant behavior and public safety as
possible. So they really shouldn’t be surprised that when a state starts really
caring about public safety at bail, it’d leave them out. This is just an example of chickens
coming home to roost.
Two idioms in one post?
Must be the caffeine.
