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
