If New York State Senator Michael Gianaris gets his way, the State of New York may do away with the bail system entirely. If you’re wondering why this has anything to do with you, it’s because if it happens there, it can happen here, too.
Senator Gianaris is upset that the current bail system in New York is unfair to the poor. The rich can easily bail themselves out of jail while the poor are often stuck in custody as they await their trial. To remedy this, the senator has proposed doing away with the bail system entirely and instead granting judges the power to choose between one of the three following options when a defendant is arrested:
- Release them on their own recognizance
- Release them under the supervision of an as-yet-to-be-determined court body
- Do not grand bail at all and hold the defendant indefinitely until their day in court
The first problem with Gianaris’ proposed changes is that it doesn’t really solve the problem of making bail affordable for the poor. Instead, it just makes it so that nobody has access to bail, whether they can afford it or not. The second problem is that it creates additional expenditure on the part of the courts that will need to be funded by additional taxes. Currently, bail is paid for either by the defendants themselves, or their friends and family. When someone skips bail (does not show up for court) the bail bondsman can hire experts to track them down and the courts can utilize the police force who are already on the payroll to serve warrants if need be. This represents a closed-system in which nobody outside of it is affected, financially or otherwise.
If bail were eliminated, who, then, would pay for experts to track down those who skipped bail? Would these experts even exist, or would we just rely on an already burdened police force to track them down? Regardless, the taxpayers would be stuck with the bill, whether it comes from expert skip tracers or additional police officers required. Also, the court system would need to be expanded to handle court supervised release (whatever that is) and whatever additional costs this expansion would incur would also fall to the taxpayers.
Last but not least, bail functions as a powerful motivator to ensure defendants return to court at the appointed date and time. Without the threat of being forced to pay the full amount of bail if they do not show up for court, what’s left to ensure that they do?
