If you have money, you can pay the bail and get released, while poor people can’t.
I don’t see why people with money should get benefits in the legal system?
Bail is an option for the courts to use to insure someone that might be a certain level of flight risk shown up to court.
It’s not 100% necessity. People can be released on their own bond commonly referred to as a “personal bond” they don’t pay anything and just promise to show up.
Has this bond system been abused as a form of oppression. Of course. We’re human after all and there are corrupt shitty judges on the bench.
But for the most part the bond system does function.
We all agree that the bond system functions. The question is whether it’s discriminatory, and data shows that it is, which is why it’s no longer used in some places. It’s not only the corrupt judges, it’s the judges. It’s not only the judges, it’s the cops who know that the judges will do their thing. You can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride, as they say, and this is one piece of it.
And suppose you get arrested. Now you want to post bond, but part of that involves pretrial release conditions, which would ordinarily be a violation of your constitutional rights, but if you agree to them, then they’re acceptable. And what’s your real option here? Get locked up until the trial? Then you can’t work and you lose your house and your car and your family. So you get onerous conditions imposed on you, assumed guilty until proven innocent, and somehow it’s supposed to be consistent with the Bill of Rights. We all know it’s not, but that’s no matter, because the appeals courts are down with it, and nobody can stop them.
There are two primary systems of law in the United States that absolutely must be reformed above any other branch or law.
Immigration and criminal justice.
These systems in the United States are archaic third world and downright discriminatory to anybody that goes through them.
They are truly terrible.
The fact that we even have such systems in place in the United States is mind-boggling.
Other countries look at us and simply call us barbarians.
It’s not Insane, it’s just wrong. People who can’t afford bail can generally get a bail bond, which will front the cost in exchange for the defendant paying about 10% IIRC. The thinking is that people who aren’t considered a flight risk, and aren’t a risk to the community, shouldn’t be imprisoned until there’s a guilty verdict, and putting money on the line that they lose if they don’t show up to court will encourage them to show up.
On the surface, it’s not an insane thought. It’s just… wrong. It just doesn’t really work. In practice it really does just disproportionately punish those who are already suffering, while also making it possible for the wealthy to further escape any consequences.
I think bails are nowhere near as insane as settling out of court.
It’s supposed to be scaled as a percentage of income / net worth. Whether that’s true in practice however is debatable
Crimes exist for the poor. Simple as.
No, crimes exist for whoever isn’t in power. There are several crimes that can only be committed by rich people, such as those related to banking and the stock market, formation of cartels* and monopolistic/anti-competitive practices, etc. But conveniently the criminals are only prosecuted when they are the political or commercial opponents of whoever happens to be in charge at the time.
*Not the drug kind, the “a small group of companies with a combined market majority conspires to fix prices while pretending to compete with each other” kind
