The first thought people have as soon they are arrested is how they will get back their freedom as quickly as possible. Before the person is convicted, they can gain freedom through a cash bail, property, or bail bond. This surety ensures that the person will appear in court when ordered to.
Sometimes people are released on bail at the police station before they are taken to court. However, accepting or rejecting bail for crimes is often complicated and unpredictable. Sometimes police officers do not give or deny bail for misdemeanor on reasonable terms. A police officer can deny a person bail at will as a punishment.
However, the police are only mandated to grant bails for minor crimes and leave bail decisions for serious crimes to the court. However, in this situation, the police should not hold the suspect in jail for longer than 24 hours before taking them to court. You can only bail out now a person accused of minor crimes like being drunk and disorderly, loitering, and possession of illicit liquor. The police are obligated by the law to release the offender with their bail refund if no charges are pressed against them.
A bail is a security that a defendant will show up to the courts for trial when needed. The court awards bail to a defendant once it has heard the bail argument points from the attorneys to the defendant and the prosecutor. The bail bill of rights states that everyone qualifies for bail and outlines the bail amounts for all offenses. Once a defendant pays bail, they are free until the day of the case mentioning.
If you are wondering, ‘Are bail bonds refundable?’ The bonds are fully repayable whether a defendant is found guilty or innocent. However, a small amount is deducted as court fees. In scenarios where you cannot settle the set bail, you can consider bail bonding. Bail bonding is when an individual or company fully pays the bail upon request.
However, the bail bonding service is not free. You must pay 10% of the bail amount to the bail bonder to enable full bail payment. Assault causes bodily injury family violence bond amount varies depending on the type of family violence.
After an arrest, most people will have a bail hearing fairly quickly. This is the time when the arrested person talks to the judge and a bail amount is decided. When the bail amount has been chosen, the person can then try to get a bail bond so that they can leave jail until their court date. For many charges, the judge will put conditions on the bail. This is especially true for assault bail conditions. Judges do not want another crime committed when a person is out on bail. And if the person is arrested while out on bail, they may face a harsher situation when they are taken back to jail.
Both bail and jail are parts of the justice system that can work well when used appropriately. Getting to be out on bail is helpful for many people who want to start building their court cases. If you have a loved one who has been arrested, you may wonder how to find out if someone has bail. In many cases, you can simply call the jail that had housed your loved one and ask whether they have been granted bail or not. In many jurisdictions, they will answer.
In this video, RNN’s Richard French talks with Peter Goldberg, Executive Director, about the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund and how bail impacts American citizens.
Jails all over the U.S. are packed with people who are only there because they have committed small crimes and are unable to pay bail. As a result, these people are sent to prisons such as Rikers in The Bronx, NY.
The Brooklyn Community Bail Fund is one of New York’s charity bail bond companies, one whose goal is to challenge inequality and injustice within the legal system. This charity pays bail on behalf of detainees who cannot afford it and believes wholeheartedly that cash bail will always punish poor people if it’s allowed to continue.
Goldberg states that people lose their freedom many times over a few hundred dollars. He claims that an astounding 75% of pretrial detainees are sitting in jail or prison because they can’t pay their bail. Only 8% of these people have committed serious crimes, including murder, sexual assault, and gun charges.
There are countless stories of people in New York who were arrested and could not make bail. Thankfully, the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund was there to help. One sixteen-year-old was accused of taking sneakers from his foster brother. The teen spent the night in jail with a bail set at $500. Without the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, he would have been sent to Rikers.
These situations aren’t just happening in New York; it’s occurring across the country. Similar stories have recently surfaced in Texas and California. The idea of abolishing cash bail is becoming a national debate.
Goldberg believes this to be a step in the right direction and explains that detainees spend an average of two weeks at Rikers prison when their bail is set at $1000. He presents the shocking statistic that 70% of Americans do not have $1000 in their savings account.
Why should the amount of money you have determine if you can get out of jail? Goldberg says it shouldn’t. And not only that, but changes should be made to eliminate the vast number of people kept in pretrial.
Some question whether abolishing cash bail is the right decision and wonder how the detainees will return for their court date if they don’t have bail. But according to Goldberg, most of his clients returned to court, and it did not depend on how much money they had.
Cash bail costs tax-payers billions of dollars every year and hurts low-income and colored individuals.
The Brooklyn Community Bail Fund is working hard to stop bail from destroying communities. The charity has paid bail for over 1,800 people thus far.
