Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

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> regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status?

The money is presumably to cover the cost of sending someone out to find the accused and drag them to the courthouse. If someone can't afford to pay the bond and then tries to run, I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it.

Someone has decided it is easier to simply keep the accused in jail. Assuming they've done the math on costs properly it would make sense. Taxpayers shouldn't be in a position to cover the cost of people running from the law.

It is an uncomfortable system that clearly biases in favour of the rich - but the rich are the ones covering the cost of it all so I am comfortable standing up and saying I don't mind if they get special treatment. Wealthy people pay something like half the taxes; it seems reasonable that they can wait for their day in court in comfort. Wealth comes with privileges and they aren't criminals until they are convicted.

But keeping them locked up _also_ costs money. And not just the direct costs, the taxpayers wind up on the hook for all the indirect costs too.

And thus the cycle of poverty continues and meritocracy descends into hereditary meritocracy, which isn't a meritocracy at all.

> I don't see how that money can be reclaimed except for the taxpayer covering it.

I see that the economic cost of perpetuating economic classes and the economic disruption of confinement without trial far outweigh this taxpayer cost. Taxpayers win when justice prevails.

This kind of extreme libertarian mindset just baffles me.

> I see that the economic cost of perpetuating economic classes and the economic disruption of confinement without trial far outweigh this taxpayer cost.

Sure, but in this instance the person you are metaphorically telling that to is the person who is paying half the costs in their capacity as a taxpayer. If there is a scheme that is cheaper than incarceration for 3rd parties and gets everyone to court on time then I'm sure everyone is in favour of it except maybe the bail bondsmen.

But the status quo is defensible - "rich people shouldn't be privileged" isn't a sensible argument. They have to get some comfort out of all that money. That is the point of money - to buy comfort. Lots of money = lots of comfort. Many people get rich through exceptionally hard work and it makes sense that they get something out of it.

If they can't buy comfort with money then there really isn't much point to it.

I never said that the rich shouldn't be rich. I am implying that the poor shouldn't be held down. And I'm also arguing that having a healthy society with a functioning welfare system reduces crime and ultimately reduces these costs.

But I think that's besides the point on this particular issue. I can't imagine whatever costs you're imagining are involved in tracking down people skipping court dates would tax the rich out of their privilege.

We're currently in a system where if a poor person does the wrong thing, a wealthy person has to cover the tab.

On the specific topic of bail bonds, one major argument is that rich people are gaining an advantage in comfort from their wealth - which I think is perfectly reasonable, given that is explicitly the purpose of wealth.

A second major argument is that the system is unreasonably harsh to the poor. Probably true, I don't know. But that isn't an argument I'm dealing with - I'm pointing out that wealthy people buying comfort is the complaint at the root of the threat and it isn't a strong complaint. Because that is what wealth is for.

> I can't imagine whatever costs you're imagining are involved in tracking down people skipping court dates would tax the rich out of their privilege.

People need to control more money than they spend so they can set themselves up for retirement. "This would just come out of their savings" is also a bad argument at all levels of the social tree.

That isn't really going to the point you raise, which I am going to leave alone, but is an aside that I think that argument is fundamentally bad because it could be repeatedly applied until it turns out you misread the future and people start running out of savings.

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