Government has divorced itself from responsibility to protect Citizens

[Speaker to Animals]

The judge will set bail higher than you can afford in order to force you to plead guilty to keep your family fed.

Prosecutor will show up each month with some bullshit excuse to continue.

Fortunately this judge was not playing along.

[DBTrek]

Falls under "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good".

Bail is a financial incentive to bring accused criminals into court on their court date. It allows us to let people go home, go to their jobs, attend their events, etc, while awaiting their trial. The other options are to abolish bail and let everyone go until their court date, or abolish bail and keep everyone jailed until their court date. Both of those strike me as inferior to the system we have in place.

Now . .. the bail system can be abused. Ok. It's not perfect. If you have a better system that is less abusable, I'm all ears. But if no one has a better system that is more abuse-proof, then we're bitching about the best system we have because it isn't perfect. That's a waste of time.

[Speaker to Animals]

Bail for misdemeanor, DB? Really? Bail was supposed to be used to ensure defendants show up to trial, not to secure unjust convictions and make money.

[brewster]

Falls under "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good".

Bail is a financial incentive to bring accused criminals into court on their court date. It allows us to let people go home, go to their jobs, attend their events, etc, while awaiting their trial. The other options are to abolish bail and let everyone go until their court date, or abolish bail and keep everyone jailed until their court date. Both of those strike me as inferior to the system we have in place.

Now . .. the bail system can be abused. Ok. It's not perfect. If you have a better system that is less abusable, I'm all ears. But if no one has a better system that is more abuse-proof, then we're bitching about the best system we have because it isn't perfect. That's a waste of time.

I agree. Bail is certainly abused but I think the plea system is much bigger threat to freedom. Something like 95% of the accused never see a jury because the prosecutors lay on such a ridiculously thick pile of charges that the risk of losing in court is not tenable, and people must plea out. Then you have a record and life is never the same, even if you are completely innocent. Now layer that with the class aspects of the moneyed getting real representation willing to do what it takes to get them off, vs being represented by a PD with dozens of other cases who barely knows your name. Is justice being served equally?

[DBTrek]

Bail for misdemeanor, DB? Really? Bail was supposed to be used to ensure defendants show up to trial, not to secure unjust convictions and make money.

If you want to test-run dropping bail from misdemeanors I'm game.
If it works out better, let's go with it.
If it results in astronomical costs as police are forced to work overtime tracking down millions of court-date-skipping miscreants, then we'll know it was a bad idea.

We can A/B test it.

[Speaker to Animals]

It's more rent-seeking behavior by the state and a parisitical industry.

[brewster]

Bail for misdemeanor, DB? Really? Bail was supposed to be used to ensure defendants show up to trial, not to secure unjust convictions and make money.

If you want to test-run dropping bail from misdemeanors I'm game.
If it works out better, let's go with it.
If it results in astronomical costs as police are forced to work overtime tracking down millions of court-date-skipping miscreants, then we'll know it was a bad idea.

We can A/B test it.

You don't need to wait.
https://www.wnyc.org/story/crime-rates- ... nce-gloat/

Crime in New Jersey has plummeted over the past two years. Violent offences like homicide and robbery are down more than thirty percent through September, compared to state data from 2016, and the numbers have advocates of bail reform cheering.

"These numbers are staggering," said Alexander Shalom, senior supervising attorney at the ACLU-NJ.

Shalom said critics of the Criminal Justice Reform Act, which mostly did away with cash bail, warned there'd be a spike in crime. A month after it was implemented in January 2017, police union president Pat Colligan told NJ 101.5 that "some real bad guys are getting out on the street."

But since bail reform has been implemented, the numbers are down across the board.

"All the people who predicted that there would be, you know, this purge, where crime rates would simply spike, they've been demonstrably proven wrong," he said.

[DBTrek]

It's more rent-seeking behavior by the state and a parisitical industry.

Well, You Know, That's Just, Like, Your Opinion, Man.

[DBTrek]

You don't need to wait.
https://www.wnyc.org/story/crime-rates- ... nce-gloat/

Crime in New Jersey has plummeted over the past two years. Violent offences like homicide and robbery are down more than thirty percent through September, compared to state data from 2016, and the numbers have advocates of bail reform cheering.

"These numbers are staggering," said Alexander Shalom, senior supervising attorney at the ACLU-NJ.

Shalom said critics of the Criminal Justice Reform Act, which mostly did away with cash bail, warned there'd be a spike in crime. A month after it was implemented in January 2017, police union president Pat Colligan told NJ 101.5 that "some real bad guys are getting out on the street."

But since bail reform has been implemented, the numbers are down across the board.

"All the people who predicted that there would be, you know, this purge, where crime rates would simply spike, they've been demonstrably proven wrong," he said.

So dishonest.
The two sentences following what you cut:

But there's no way of knowing if the reduction in crime had anything to do with bail reform.

"These are very difficult connections to make in a scientifically reliable fashion," said Martin Horn, distinguished lecturer in corrections at John Jay College.

Could be that crime fell in every zip code surrounding New Jersey as well, and that the bail reform had zero to do with any of it. Of course, determining that takes work and robs lazy people of easy (but severely flawed) political gotcha points.

Poor show.

[Fife]

Reality sandwich: bail is a tool in the toolbox of state prosecutors.

I don't have time at the moment to jump in with both feet, but the quick take for you all is this: the modern bail industry doesn't operate for the use and benefit of the criminally accused.