Well, this is a pretty long status, but if you are a taxpayer in the County, you may be interested in reading this... Lehigh County Bail Reform – If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Over the past six months or so, Lehigh County and a special bail committee consisting of only pretrial agents and government employees from the criminal clerk of courts division have been drafting new local rules for commercial bail agents. These new rules will, essentially, put all local commercial bail agents out of business. Commercial bail agents have been posting bail in Lehigh County for over twenty-five years. Agents post bail for defendants so they may be released from jail while their cases move through the criminal justice system. The agents act as a guarantee to the courts that defendants will appear in court until the time they are sentenced by a Judge. Should a defendant fail to appear in court, an agent becomes financially liable for the full amount of the bail and must take on the responsibility for locating and apprehending the defendant in order to incarcerate them in jail for their failure to comply with the court. Commercial bail agents are 100% liable for their defendants, are required to pay out of their own pockets any and all expenses associated with locating and apprehending their defendants if the person fails to appear in court, and are also liable to pay a court in any jurisdiction the full amount of the bail should a bail agent fail to apprehend the defendant in a timely manner. Studies show, that commercial bail agents have over a 98% success rate in capturing their defendants. No taxpayer dollars are spent to apprehend defendants, nor are any governmental tax monies spent in providing this service to the community in which the bail agent is providing such services. Over the years, many states have proposed new bail reform laws promoting only pretrial release systems. Pretrial release systems are county funded programs wherein the pretrial service division becomes the bail authority within a county to administer the bail system, provide recommendations concerning bails, and monitor defendants. On average, a local pretrial service release program has a budget in excess of one million dollars. Pretrial Service agent salaries are derived from taxpayer funds. Should a defendant fail to appear in court if out on bail with pretrial services, the bail is forfeited and the costs of the bail are placed against the defendant as a civil lien. On very rare occasions, defendants that have failed to appear in court are investigated by Sheriff’s and/or local officers. Again, these sheriff deputies and/or local officers’ salaries are derived from taxpayer funds. A much larger percentage of defendants bailed out of jail using pretrial service programs fail to appear in court because they know they are not actively pursued by anyone to be returned to court, nor are they financially liable for paying anyone back if they fail to appear in court. Bail agents in Lehigh County were recently provided with a list of defendants that have failed to appear in court. The list consists of both defendants that were supervised by pretrial services and commercial bail bond agents. After “crunching the numbers” of monies owed to the county for defendant bail forfeitures, collectively the commercial bail agents owed $400,000.00 to the County of Lehigh, however, Pretrial Service defendants owed over $8,000,000.00 to the County of Lehigh. Bail agents are required to pay their forfeitures to the County in order to continue their work. A bail agent can be suspended by the County for any failure to pay. Pretrial Service employees have no financial obligations to the County, cannot by suspended from their duties for bailing out a defendant that fails to appear in Court, nor are they required to apprehend their defendant when they fail to appear court. Pretrial release might sound good in theory, but when the defendant is the only person accountable for his/her actions and no proper apprehension methods are in place should the defendant fail to appear in court, it can and will result in a higher fugitive rate, thus allowing criminals to roam the streets and commit additional crimes, and your tax dollars are paying for it. In order for a bail agent to stay profitable, defendants must go to court. This is why bail agents have such stringent policies when bailing out defendants. Why would anyone want their county to lose private bail agents and only allow for pretrial release programs when private bail companies don’t cost taxpayers a nickel? The best choice here is continue allowing private commercial bail agents to post bail in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. If these bail rules are approved, many other counties will follow by example and your tax dollars will pay for this service to be implemented. Bail agents pay local, state and federal taxes. If a bail is forfeited, a bail agent pays that money back to the county in order to continue writing bail within that jurisdiction. If a bail agent fails to render that payment to the county, they are no longer allowed to post bail until the judgment is satisfied. Monies paid to the county contribute to the economic growth of said county, whereas the outstanding debts owed to the county by way of Pretrial Service bail are almost never collected. So, if the commercial bail bond system works so well, why are taxpayer wallets being emptied by pretrial service release programs that are not ensuring the general public safety and overall welfare of their citizens? Why does the County of Lehigh propose only allowing for pretrial release programs while kicking out the private bail bond companies? Please share this and get the word out there that your money is being spent on keeping criminals on the streets....
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 20:39:49 +0000
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