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Comment by kevin_b_er | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with the author on the goodness of bail bond services. A bond should be payable but a hardship upon the person. The very existence of bail bondsman means the bonds themselves are so frequently beyond any reasonable cost to the humans.

That the bail bondsman is also somehow involved in legal advice navigating pretrial conditions is a further crock of excrement upon the system.

Also I'm astounded the Koch brothers are involved in this, and I'm curious what their profit motive is as I don't believe they have a single bit of altruism in them.

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The Koch brothers also joined the Obama administration in trying to take on occupational licensing. Similar sort of vein: government overreach making life harder for people.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/12/09/char...

> Also I'm astounded the Koch brothers are involved in this, and I'm curious what their profit motive is as I don't believe they have a single bit of altruism in them.

The Koch brothers have a vested interest in pointing out examples (and this is one of them), where liberal feel-good policies make the lives of actual poor people worse.

> The Koch brothers have a vested interest in pointing out examples (and this is one of them), where liberal feel-good policies make the lives of actual poor people worse.

The cash bail system and the bail bonds industry it supports are not “liberal feel good” policies.

Demonizing and discouraging industries that cater to poor people as “exploitative” (fast food, pay day lending, low quality housing) is a liberal feel good policy.

That would make your argument coherent (if still wrong), if Koch Industries was in this discussion as an opponent rather than one of the groups Google worked with on the issue to come to this policy.

Opposition to the cash bail system and the government-spawned industry it supports, while to be sure prominent on the left, also has notable support among (even right-)libertarians.

It's not clear to me from the coverage whether the Kochs support Google's idea specifically, or bail bond reform generally: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/07/google-and-koch-brothers-tea....

> It's not clear to me from the coverage whether the Kochs support Google's idea specifically

Perhaps, but your argument about their interest in the present issue only made sense if they were overt critics, when the only reason they are in the discussion isn't criticism of the policy but Google crediting Koch when announcing the policy.

No, you're right, I was confused about what exactly their involvement was.

I don't know if that was deliberate on your part, but the "liberal feel good policies" here refers to "banning and harsh regulation of payday lending and bail bonds places".

But Koch isn't in this discussion as a critic of the Google policy, but as a critic of the money bail system and the industry it supports, and as one of the partners Google worked with on the issue leading to adopting the ban.

>where liberal feel-good policies make the lives of actual poor people worse.

are bail bonds a "liberal feel-good policy"?

The point of bail is to keep jails as empty as possible while ensuring defendants still show up for their day in court.

If you can't put up the whole amount, you can pay a bail bondsman a fee and you become his problem.

Both these concepts are good things for the accused. What is your alternative? Fill up the jails? Just use the honor system?

That's a false dichotomy. There's nothing inherent to the bail system that requires huge bail bonds that defendants cannot afford on their own. If bail schedules were abolished and bail was tailored to the individual, bail bondsmen would be unnecessary.

Bail is set at an amount high enough that people can't afford to lose it, and thus show up to be prosecuted for a crime. If you set bails so low that most people could afford them out of pocket, they'd be so low that the risk of loss wouldn't have any deterrent effect. 60% of Americans couldn't cover even a $1,000 unexpected expense: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/few-americans-have-enough-sa....

It sounds like 60% should have bail set at or below $1k

Question:

For someone who is already comparatively poor (ie. no savings), why is "being a fugitive who also owes someone money" worse than "being a fugitive"?

Because the bail bondsman is not going to sell your debt to the collection and forget about it. He is going to salvage the bail money by catching you and bringing you to the court.

As a practical matter, the government doesn't have the resources to launch a manhunt for everyone who gets arrested in a bar fight. The bail bondsman, however, typically will have your collateral, etc.

Bail is set absurdly high to force false guilty pleas.

I'm not sure if anyone is arguing for getting rid of bail? The alternatives some people advocate include setting bail lower and yes, sometimes relying on the honor system.

Lots more here:

https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/1439-bail-reform

> I'm not sure if anyone is arguing for getting rid of bail?

Bail, no, but money bail, yes; there is an active movement, at the federal level and within several states, to move away from, and ultimately eliminate, the system of money bail. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a bill last year with that aim; in California, SB 10 passed the Senate last year and is now in the Assembly.

> Also I'm astounded the Koch brothers are involved in this, and I'm curious what their profit motive is as I don't believe they have a single bit of altruism in them.

This speaks more about what flavor of marketing you've bought into than any sort of real understanding.

Nobody thinks they themselves is a villain. The Koch brothers have become political figures because they believe what they're doing is morally right.

The Koch brothers are probably true believers in libertarianism. Sure, it's often advantageous to their business interests. But it also produces things like this.

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