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Comment by dogma1138 | Hacker News Reader

How about we start with not allowing people to legally kidnap individuals?

I never understood the whole concept of “bounty hunters” in the US it’s not the Wild West anymore.

The problem here is that “fugitive recovery” doesn’t need to meet any of the standards normal law enforcement does and unless they kill someone or injure bystanders there likely won’t be an investigation into their conduct and even if there is one the result is often that at worse that could happen is then loosing their license. Criminal investigations against fugitive recovery agents are pretty darn rare and there is no internal affairs or any body that really investigates their conduct on a regular basis.

I’m pretty sure that a large amount of these people violate much more than the privacy of their targets on a regular basis.

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> it’s not the Wild West anymore

They didn't get that memo. The mentality and folklore is that it still is. Laws, politics, government, privacy, policing, social mores, business and especially foreign policy all seem to retain the idea they are a frontier society blessed with Manifest Destiny. Their way, however flawed, is the only way etc etc.

The person writing the article was able to obtain data despite not even being a "real bounty hunter" (whatever that is). And it seems entirely plausible for a stalker/abusive ex/etc) to obtain the same data. So I think the collection and resale of the data remains an issue regardless of the bail bond/bounty hunter aspect.

The US can still issue letters of marque and reprisal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

The Fugitive: Evidence on Public Versus Private Law Enforcement from Bail Jumping

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18862432

Know what's even more effective and cheap than Private Law Enforcement? Torturing suspects until they confess and shooting them on the spot if they are guilty.

My point is, this is not about effectiveness, but about legality. A constitutional democracy needs to stay constitutional and legal in its ways of delivering justice, otherwise it's not a constitutional democracy anymore but an anarchy.

Giving private individuals the right to legally kidnap people, as well as massive privacy violations like stated in the OP's article — without any oversight — at least to me looks like a massive violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The vast majority of bounty hunting cases are going to the addict/drunk’s door and reminding him he’s got a hearing to be at. The kind of glorifications you see on the teevee are virtually nonexistent.

As for the privacy aspect, well online privacy is observably a fiction and it always has been. Only naifs and fools believe otherwise in the face of overwhelming evidence. Sure there ought to be privacy online in some idealistic sense, but there isn’t in reality so act accordingly.

>The vast majority of bounty hunting cases are going to the addict/drunk’s door and reminding him he’s got a hearing to be at. The kind of glorifications you see on the teevee are virtually nonexistent.

I somehow doubt that's what they make the money on because they make money on bail skippers usually a percentage of the set bail.

In any case if you need someone to appear in court there is something we call a police force which should be used.

You do realize the fugitives in question voluntarily entered into a contract with the bondsman right? Frankly, getting driven to the court appearance is a mild and totally appropriate response to the default. It’s way better for the fugitive than having the marshals called in.

As far as I am aware the marshals are called only in federal cases or cases where state lines are crossed, in all other cases it would be your local sherif department.

We have contract law for a reason any contract can be made illegal regardless if someone has went into it of their own volition or not.

By this definition we can also legalize slavery or indentured servitude, not to mention that I wouldn't call a situation were the choice is either debt or prison having freedom.

There are one or two bounty hunters live streaming their job at twitch. The vast majority of their job is sitting in a car, driving. But it usually doesn't seem to involve showing up at an "addict/drunk’s door"

I agree with you, but that seems to be a different issue. We'd have to think about data even if bounty hunters wouldn't exist.

> How about we start with not allowing people to legally kidnap individuals?

Then you'd have to give up being able to afford bail; without bounty hunters, bondsman would have no recourse when you didn't show up to court and thus not much incentive to loan you bail money. You're not being legally kidnapped, you agreed to those terms when you borrowed the bond money for bail.

The bail money isn't an essential part of the system either. Most other countries have radically different systems; in the U.K. it's unconditional and free for minor offenses with escalating conditions (and violence may result in no bail at all).

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/bail

It's essential in a system where changes to how government operates largely aren't possible due to partisan divides; bondsman are a free market solution to absurd government policies on bail. When you can't fix the government, you go around them.

btw, that wasn't me that down voted you.

The majority of bail isn’t prescribed at the federal level plenty of states can go way with it if they wanted too.

The whole concept of bail shouldn’t have a place in a modern society.

No one said anything about the federal government; state governments are just as absurd and just as divided.

The majority of states are completely controlled by one party (the majority of the legislature and the governor are belong to the same party), and only one state has a split legislature.

The bail system itself is abhorrent if there isn’t a reason to lock you up until trial then you shouldn’t be locked up, if there is you shouldn’t be able to buy your way out.

Most other countries have figured out how to serve justice without a system that discriminates against the poor.

Too many people can’t afford the down payment or can offer a collateral to get a bail financed those who can end up being indebted to them you are advocating for the legalization of loan sharks.

Most other countries don't have our intractable political system; bondsman solve a problem, they let people get out of jail when the government is being absurd.

And do you think the bondsmen don’t have an incentive to keep the status quo?

It’s a multi billion dollar industry which effectively taxes the poor.

Make bounties illegal and it fill fall, once it falls the entire bail system in the US will have to be rethought as there isn’t a way to lock so many people up, more judges will release them until trial without setting a bail which they can already legally do and do so for minor offenses.

You're putting the cart before the horse; until you change the government and thus the bail system, we need bondsman. Making bounties illegal won't stop judges from setting bails people can't afford and is thus not a valid solution.

Very dumb argument. There is no cart and there is no horse. Eliminate the bail system and something has to fill the void.

I remember seeing one in LA. I thought it was fake! Like a tourist attraction.

There are several states with no private bail including Oregon and Massachusetts somehow I doubt that offenders in those states are worse off.

In a country where judges are elected a multi billion dollar has a lot of power in determining how bail is set by the courts.

If you think that judges that get donations from bondsmen don’t take that into account when setting bail you are very naive.

This is the exact same problem as private prisons the justice system should not be monetized for profit.

You finally explained a mystery to me why growing up in Oregon, I've never seen a bailbond place with its flashy neon signs and general run-down areas outside of courthouses. Something I became fairly familiar with moving around California.

Bounty hunters are not universal. For example, here in Oregon they are illegal.

There is also no private bail in Oregon afaik, but I think only 5 states or so are like that.

Yep, we set a bond, and you can pay 10% to the court to bail yourself out. If you skip, the sheriff is the one who will come for you. Though in practice most people are released on their own recognizance, no bond is set except for serious cases.

Also, Oregon doesn't just outlaw bounty hunters as part of our own process, we outlaw them altogether. Bounty hunting is classified as kidnapping.

While there are many things Oregon could do better, there are a whole bunch of things, like this, which I think we are absolutely right on.

I grew up in a town where the mayor was the bail bondsman. His son was the district prosecutor.

A perfect, no-frills example of the typical dynamic between bail bondsmen and government.

How strange that I received the maximum possible bail amount for a crime that I didn't even commit. Surely there couldn't have been an incentive for the son of the guy who makes the laws to illegally prosecute and fine a minor whose only way to finish graduating high school is to pay the damn fine, so that the guy who makes the laws could collect that fine... That would just be corrupt.

Bail is a common mechanism outside of US too.

Depositing money as part of bail is only really a practice in the U.S. and Philippines.

https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2018/oct/09...

> "Only Duterte’s Philippines and Trump’s United States of America have money bail."

Canada has bail too. In recent news

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/huawei-meng-...

It’s not about the amount of bail but rather the price of a bond.

If the bond costs 10% then you can’t pay bail if it’s set to 10 million or even a million or even lower for most people, if it’s capped at say $100 something that even some US states do then it’s not as much of a problem.

If you look at the US bondsman industry it’s focused on the states not with the highest average bail set but those with the highest prices on bail bonds.

Perhaps other legal systems exist around the world which have been able to deal with this over the course of history?

> Then you'd have to give up being able to afford bail

California did this last year. People still get released pending trial, they just aren't required to pay a private party for the privilege.

How come this doesn't apply to any other sort of debt this is really bad logic.

making a citizens arrest is not the same as kidnapping... anyone can make a citizens arrest if a crime is being committed, this is perfectly legal. Kidnapping is when you detain someone who has not committed a crime.

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