Bail Industry Language

Deal Bail Industry;

I know you've been struggling for 10 years now to find your footing, but I still believe you haven't quite gotten a handle on what you should and should not say about bail. Accordingly, I'm giving you the following advice about what not to say:

You can't say that money bail makes the defendant "accountable" because being accountable is being held responsible for one's actions, and in bail we haven't even proven that anyone has done anything yet. Accountability is a punishment term, so find a better word.

You can't even say that commercial sureties are "accountable" when, in fact, they push off all the liability and costs to the defendants and their families. Commercial sureties aren't accountable for anything. And bail insurance companies are about fourteen steps removed from even that level of accountability. They literally don't do anything.

You can't say that bail is all about "freedom" on the one hand, and then post a billion Facebook stories about all the horrible people who shouldn't be let out of jail. Face it, you'd be fine with them being let out of jail so long as they paid some money. Your inconsistencies are killing you.

You can't say that "bail is constitutionally protected" when you define bail as money or, worse, as commercial bail. Bail as a process of conditional release is protected by the constitution, not money bail or you. We're not trying to get rid of bail -- we're trying to make it the process of release it was always meant to be, and it just so happens that money gets in the way of that.

You can't talk about public safety period, so stop trying. You can't forfeit money on a bail bond for anything but failure to appear for court. You all actually make a lot of money when people commit crimes while on pretrial release so long as they don't skip court, and you know it. I actually heard a bail insurance dude recently try to link his business (court appearance) to public safety by saying, "When they're coming back to court, they aren't committing new crimes." Man, that's just stupid. What does he mean -- does he mean that while they're actually on the bus coming to court they can't possibly commit a crime? You know public safety is your Achilles heel, but it's the bail insurance companies that created that dilemma over the last several decades. They're the ones who always fought when states tried to allow forfeiture of a bail bond for new crimes. They did it again most recently in Pennsylvania.

You can't say, "They're not in jail because they're poor, they're in jail because of (fill in the blank)." Most of the times that you fill in this blank, you fill it in with something the defendant did, which means the money is punishment and thus unconstitutional. And beyond this, saying that they can't afford their charges or criminal history is just another way of saying they can't afford their risk. Not affording their risk means using money to detain, which is unconstitutional whether it's intentional or unintentional. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to read my last paper. And, by the way, if even one person is in jail because he's poor, we need to fix the system.

Oh, and quit bringing up Martin Luther King. The fact that he was once bailed out back in the day is beside the point. If he were alive today, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be a strong advocate for the money bail system. I already wrote about that here.

I'm not going to help you with what to say because I think the bail insurance lobbyists need to figure that out for themselves. Besides, I've told you all enough of that already, and I'm pretty sure nobody listened.

Just a bit of friendly advice!

Very truly yours,

Tim

ABC Insults California Chief Justice -- Wonders, " Why Aren't We Winning?"

The American Bail Coalition took its turn presenting to the California Detention Workgroup right after me. ABC got its chance to forward its argument. It put together tons of "resources." And it had the list of principles the Chief Justice wanted the Workgroup to consider. Based on the way bail was done in California, it was clear that the Workgroup was looking at ways to improve the process.

What did ABC likely give them? Arguments for keeping everything the same.

And then, when the report comes out and pretty much decides not to keep everything the same, what does ABC do? Insult the Chief Justice.

Yep, for real. In its statement, ABC said the Chief Justice ignored reality, didn't keep her oath of office, was soft on crime, and was playing politics. Nice going ABC. In your zeal to make yourself look good, you've now personally insulted the highest judge in the state of California. You deserve whatever comes from that.

The bail industry has fundamental flaws with its current strategy. As I've said before, this strategy is baked into the fabric of the bail industry's insurance lobbyists, and has existed since the 1960s, when a bail industry representative told attendees at the National Bail Conference basically, "Good luck trying to get rid of us."

So, okay bail agents, keep on sending ABC and the insurance companies all that money. After all, they help pay your losses . . .  oh, wait, they don't. Well, then they hire people with great arguments for keeping the bail industry alive . . .  oh, wait, maybe not. Well, at least they aren't going around insulting judges, the very people who can eliminate your whole industry simply by choosing not to use you . . . oh, wait.

The New Mexico Governor and Bail Reform

I like when Governors get involved with bail reform. I really do. But with the New Mexico Governor's entry into the world of bail reform calling for the repeal of the constitutional bail amendment through her Facebook account, I have four quick things to say.

First, she was for the New Mexico constitutional amendment in September before the election. Given that it passed with 87% of the vote, I'll bet she even voted for it.  Before the election, the bail insurance companies even called it a "historic" compromise. Then they realized that the New Mexico Supreme Court had the ability to radically diminish the use of money at bail. They had serious buyer's remorse when they learned they couldn't just lobby the legislature to keep themselves in business, and I guess they managed to spread that to the Governor.

Second, I don't like when bail reform gets political, because it doesn't need to. But by using the phrase "repeal and replacement" -- perhaps the most political phrase of the 21st Century -- along with faulting judges for "return[ing] criminals back to our neighborhoods" as well as repeating he woefully tired phrase "catch and release," she has obviously bought into the bail industry's political rhetoric of trying to show that any attempt at bail reform is an Obama-era program that somehow hurts public safety (the last desperate cry of defenders of the status quo). Just remember, the bail insurance companies don't care about public safety -- up until the amendment, they were quite happy helping to release any and all dangerous defendants in New Mexico so long as they had some money. Bottom line: Bail reform isn't political if you actually know what bail reform is.

Third, the substance of this issue shows just how little the Governor actually understands. The case she cites, William Wilson, could have been detained under the constitutional amendment. So there's nothing wrong with the amendment in that case.  In the old days, some judge would have given William a money bond, and William would have been out on the streets anyway because a Supreme Court opinion said New Mexico judges couldn't use money to detain. Money won't keep anyone safe, so the constitutional amendment allows judges to detain, without money, dangerous defendants, just like the Governor wanted. And there's nothing you could add to the constitution to do any more than just allow judges the opportunity to detain someone. Laws that have that made persons automatically detainable for various reasons have always been struck as unconstitutional. Even rebuttable presumptions have to be rebuttable.

So if the constitutional amendment did what it was supposed to do -- i.e., allow a judge to detain William -- why wasn't he detained? Well, it could be because of the court rules (which is ABC's beef), but if that's the case, then I suppose that's just tough. In New Mexico, the Supreme Court's rules govern bail, and the legislature can't change them. I suppose that's why she says she wants to repeal and replace the constitutional amendment; the bail insurance companies finally figured out that the amendment wasn't the best thing for their industry after all, and going back to change the constitution is really the only way they can undo it.

But the fact that William wasn't detained could also be due to the fact that no matter what we do, we simply cannot predict individual defendant behavior. Indeed, the more serious and violent crime gets, the less able we are to predict it. We couldn't predict it in the money bail system either, but at least this way New Mexico gets at least a shot at detention for certain "dangerous" defendants.

I imagine if you look hard at the case she cites, you'll see that the judge did the absolute best he or she could do to balance individual freedom with public safety and court appearance. William could've been detained, but something in the case -- including the inability to predict individual risk under any bail system -- obviously led to his release.

So, Governor, respectfully: (1) the amendment isn't really your problem based on what you're saying (it's someone else' problem, but I'll let you figure that out on your own); (2) don't politicize bail reform -- leave that to the insurance companies who don't care one bit about New Mexico residents; and (3) look into the issues before you take a stand on something. If you'd have looked into the constitutional amendment before you said you were for it, you would've not only seen this coming, you would've actually understood why it was inevitable.

Oh, and (4): On Facebook? Really?

American Bail Agent Coalition Part II

One thing I like about Facebook is that if you get up before the guy operating some Facebook page, you can read the comments to a post before they get deleted. I read the comments on the post announcing ABC's upcoming agent conference (they're gone now), and there were a bunch of them, mostly in three categories: (1) I have to choose between yours and and the one by PBUS; (2) you didn't give me enough time (it's only a month away); and (3) how can I know what to do if you don't have an agenda?

So this thing looks a lot like last year, which I wrote about here. Mostly chaotic.

ABC will likely do the same thing this year by trying to convince you that everything is turning around, and that you need to keep fighting everyone. But really, do you think things got better for the for-profit bail industry in America last year? Plus, they'll leave a lot out. For example, they might tell you that they talked DOJ into stopping any funding for pretrial stuff, but guess what? We replaced all that money and a lot more with both conservative and liberal private donors.

By the way, I also followed a link provided by ABC to the "AGENT ONLY Private Page on Facebook" for the ABAC, and guess what? It wasn't exactly private, and there's a whole bunch of people listed as members who are insurance-only people. ABC's afraid of a truly "agent only" page, so it's characteristic of ABC that it would say it's "agent only" when it really isn't.

The conference, the new agent group, the strategy, and even the Facebook pages are what I've come to expect from ABC. Just remember, bail agents, because the solution to the issue of bail in America doesn't involve insurance companies, those companies will fight everyone and everything that represents any change to the status quo. But states don't want the status quo. And until ABC can provide an answer to states who truly want something different, they'll fight the states, turn them against commercial bail, and take you all down with it. 

The American Bail Agent Coalition?

Yep, that’s right. ABC is starting the American Bail Agent Coalition. Remember when I wrote about the new communications guy they hired? Well, this same guy’s job description is also to try to build a bridge between agents and the insurance companies. And for that reason, you should really look at this thing with some hefty skepticism. Because he’s not really a bail agent anymore – he’s now on the insurance payroll.

I’ve been telling agents for years that the insurance companies aren’t doing their agents any favors. And think about it – they never have. Over the decades these companies have made sure agents take all the risk and cover all the losses. As I’ve often said, it’s like the mafia, with agents dropping bags of money on the porches of the insurance companies. The insurance companies are now spending all that agent-earned money to fight everything, because when a company makes money for doing literally nothing, any change to the status quo means losing money (and that money probably isn’t just sitting in a pile waiting to be used; it’s probably going to some pretty cushy insurance executive salaries). But, really, what has all the fighting gotten you so far?  

I’ve checked out the ABAC Facebook page, and you really don’t have to bother. The same guy running the US Bail Reform page is obviously doing this one and ABC’s, and so it’s got all the same posts. Mostly it has the usual – “Look at this dangerous guy RELEASED ON A PINKY PROMISE!” stories.

It’s also got a funny picture that repeats the words “public safety” over and over. Really, the inherent lack of concern over public safety is the one thing doing the most damage to your industry, and saying the words “public safety” over and over won’t change that. Once people look into it and see that you can’t forfeit money for new crimes, they quickly see that whatever the industry says about public safety is disingenuous. ABC, PBUS, ABAC, and all the people behind those other bogus websites and pages out there would gladly release that really dangerous guy if he only had a few hundred bucks, and so it’s clear that the bail industry and public safety aren’t even really a thing. No wonder the ABAC page has to repeat it so much – even it doesn’t believe it.  

Look, the guy that ABC hired used to be an agent, but now he’s an insurance guy being paid insurance money to convince you to agree to the insurance company strategy. And don’t be fooled. PBUS isn’t here for the individual agent, either. If it were, it would’ve figured out a long time ago how to keep from sending the insurance companies all that money so that they can do absolutely nothing. And it would’ve pretty quickly seen that fighting literally everyone on every single issue will only come back to bite you. PBUS may not be “all bail insurance, all the time,” but it’s infested with insurance dudes and it has the bail insurance mentality. I don’t see that changing without some really serious adjustments at the top. 

But now, aligned as they may be, it’s clear that ABC has grown weary of the really whacked out strategy of PBUS, which has brought in some pretty nutty people and super-weird ideas (suing on products liability?). But ABC’s really no better, and it’s all the uninformed fighting that both groups do that will ultimately kill the industry in any event. That’s because neither ABC nor PBUS has any strategy that doesn’t involve fighting to the death. In short, they have no solution for the states. We do.  

Bail agents, I know I said I gave up on you, but I feel compelled to advise you at least one more time. So just remember that there’s no future for bail insurance companies in American pretrial release and detention. There’s no need, because even if we keep money, those really big numbers are going away. The sooner you cut those companies loose and work on your own strategy, the longer you’ll stay in business. Hey, it won’t be easy, but don’t tell me it’s impossible. If you think so, you’ve just been listening to the bail insurance companies too much.  

Bail Industry: "Money Bail Only For Felonies?"

Here's a great article summarizing the current bail reform movement, titled, "The Fight to Fix America's Broken Bail System." I have to say there's a bit of vindication in hearing people call it "broken." It wasn't that long ago that I had to listen to goofballs in my own county saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Wogga muk gubba pum wup!

In the article, ABC says it just wants to preserve money bail in felony cases, saying, "The key core of our business is high risk felony cases. That's where judges should use us."

The author of the article says that the statement is "belied" by the bail industry's actions, and I agree. After all, the bail insurance companies are fighting like crazy to keep money bail in all cases, not just felonies. The federal lawsuit in Harris County only deals with misdemeanors, and the insurance companies have spent more of the bail agents' money on that case than in any to date.

So why make such a blatantly false statement? I have no answer except that the industry has been making any and all statements and arguments lately just to see what sticks. They say bail should be left to the legislatures, and then they bring their own legal claims to court (by the way, the industry has been using the courts to get its way for decades; it just doesn't like it when things go the opposite direction). They say the constitutional amendment in New Mexico is some great compromise between the industry and the state, and then they sue the state. They say there are no people in jail due to lack of money, then they say that it's time they admit that there are. In a federal trial court they say people are in jail because they want to be in jail, and then later in the same case they say those people are too dangerous to release. Now they say they only want money bail for felonies, but they fight like crazy to keep it in all cases. Makes your head spin.

This is a sign of an industry that either doesn't understand what it wants, or that's simply desperate to find the one argument that miraculously lets everything just stay the same -- preferably with them making gobs of money without doing anything. Then again, I've said before that ABC doesn't even know what the term "bail" means, so the whole thing might just be incompetence.

Really, the bail insurance "strategy" is just a confused mess, with ABC and PBUS flailing with schizophrenic arguments, groundless lawsuits, worthless PR campaigns, and bogus Facebook posts. Meanwhile, justice officials are quickly recognizing that the bail industry is simply in the way.

No wonder California has decided to look into whether there's some basic flaws in the bail insurance model with an eye toward regulation. Oh wait, that's a different blog!