[seanmcdirmid]

The bounty hunter isn't going to collect any money since there was no cash bail involved...so we don't even get that anymore. No one cares anymore if you don't come back for your court date, you just go somewhere else and even when you are re-arrested for some other crime, they simply don't care.

[toomuchtodo]

It sounds like you’re saying cash bail fixes this because they can’t afford the bail and are held indefinitely until their court date.

[seanmcdirmid]

The only point that I made here is that without cash bail, there are simply no bounty hunters to consider at all. They don't exist, because there is no economic basis for their existence.

How we get people to appear for their court date when they have no reason to, is another story all together, and I have no idea. Obviously, someone living unhoused in society without assets to freeze or a home to confiscate, doesn't have much reason to show up. They are also the ones that couldn't pay bail anyways.

[orwin]

Does it really work like that in the US? You don't get judged in abstentia? Also, suspended sentences aren't automatically unsuspended if you get arrested a second time for similar crimes? I thought suspended sentences were a big thing in modern countries.

[seanmcdirmid]

It is usually just petty crime, and even if they make a judgment, they are just happy enough that the person is now some other jurisdictions problem. So let's say you have a warrant in Sitka Alaska, but in the mean time you've moved to Seattle, Sitka is like "this guy is Seattle's problem now, whatever we decide here we aren't going to pay to have them sent back." They won't hold a trial in abstentia, they'll just issue a bench warrant and move on to the next case.

All bets are off if you make it to a federal offense (e.g. stealing USPS mail). The feds don't mess around.