[Karellen]

Maybe if someone has nothing to lose they are a flight risk, but if they have $100k on the line, they won't be?

Or are you suggesting that incentives don't actually exist, and you can't change anyone's behaviour ever by offering them rewards or punishments for acting in certain ways?

[chaps]

    Maybe if someone has nothing to lose they are a flight risk, but if they have $100k on the line, they won't be?

Same exact question can be asked about someone who's poor with a $500 bond. That same $500 will be trivial to pay for someone who's not poor. In what world is this anything but systemic punishment for being poor?

[Karellen]

I thought bail values were set based on an estimation of the defendant's worth?

So someone with a net worth of $20k might be released with a $10k bail, but someone with a net worth of $20M would be released with a $10M bail? Is that not how it works?

[proc0]

Just because a good portion of criminals are poor, doesn't mean that a good portion of poor people are criminals. Thinking that poverty causes crime is treating poor people like animals that have no freewill, and are at the whims of their environment. In fact, most poor people are not criminals, so punishing criminals IS NOT punishing poor people.

[chaps]

Are you seriously suggesting that keeping a person in jail for two years, who hasn't been given trial, solely because they can't pay $2,000 isn't effectively a punishment against being poor?

[proc0]

> solely because they can't pay $2,000

It's not "solely" because we're talking about someone already committed a crime. This punishment is not JUST for a poor person, it is for a poor person who is a criminal. Whatever judgement we attribute to the matter, saying this is a punishment for being poor is effectively saying poor people are basically criminals.

This isn't a double standard between rich and poor, but rather a double standard between rich criminals and poor criminals, which in my opinion is lower in priority compared ot things like helping poor people who don't commit crimes and are good people.

[chaps]

To be honest, you're really straining that needle threading by relying on abstract terms. Let's get down to real people who exist in the real world.

A cop was in a bad mood, gave excessive charges to someone, the judge then gave the person a $500 bail which couldn't be afforded. Let's say something like getting pulled over for a broken tail lite and the cop smelling weed, found half an oz of cannabis, then arrests them with charges for attempted distribution. This is a common scenario.

Because that person, as an individual (and not an abstract entity like you've leaned on) cannot afford to pay bail, they're then put into jail for eight months while waiting for trial. Had they had $500 in savings to pay for bail they would have been able to continue working, look for a job, maintain social relationships, etcetc. But they're poor, so now they're stuck and their life is being progressively ruined... all because they wanted to smoke some weed. What is actually gained from keeping this person in jail for eight months and ruining their life? In what world is it worse to waive that $500 bail and let them continue living their life?

Mind you, while the person is in jail, their defense attorney's interest is simply to get them out of jail. As such, constitutional violations (or even basic procedural violations!) will be considered a distraction just to make sure they don't spend an undue amount of time in jail. As in, why push for hearings to address contsitutional violations if scheduling those hearings will take three months, followed by a year of followup? All the while, the trial is continued to be delayed. This happened a LOT when the pandemic was at its peak -- human rights violations couldn't be addressed because the courts were dealing with COVID restraints and arguing anything but the very narrow slice of the specific charges would cause harm to the person. Tons of people just sat in jail all because the courts were overbooked, a large percentage who were found not-guilty, or charges were dropped, etc. Many because they couldn't afford bond.

Also mind you, there are organizations like Chicago Community Bond Fund who will pay someone's bond if they can't (through a revolving door fund). If those organizations are able to pay peoples' bonds, then what purpose does a bond actually serve?

[proc0]

Ok sure, let's say that person benefits from no bond, and can continue their life. Now consider a scenario where someone who drinks and drives get arrested but are let out immediately, then they do it again and get into a serious car accident. Or how about a serial car thief that is let out and continues stealing more cars. It seems likely to me that the community of poor people who, for the most part, are not criminals or criminal suspects, would suffer the most just because we have these other edge cases of someone smoking weed and not affording bail... which is why I think it's important to make the distinction between the potential criminals and poor people.

It's not ideal that someone got caught for something minor and can't afford bail, however that safeguard is in place to deter the actual criminals. If the law accounts for this and only removes bonds from low level crimes and only first time offenders, then I would agree with that.

[Karellen]

> It's not "solely" because we're talking about someone already committed a crime. This punishment is not JUST for a poor person, it is for a poor person who is a criminal.

Um, bail is for people who are awaiting trial. It's for people who are suspected of having committed a crime. It is for someone who might be a criminal.

Innocent until proven guilty.

[proc0]

Sure, then there is a distinction between criminal suspects and poor people, which means those mostly affected by the bonds are poor people who are also criminal suspects. The question is then are the majority of those criminal suspects guilty, if no then this is really inefficient and/or corrupt law enforcement, if yes then eliminating bail has the potential to release these criminals and risking more crimes... just because some of them are committing low level crimes and can't afford bail. Now if the law accounts for this and makes a distinction between low level crimes and first time offenders, then I guess that would be fine.