[bpicolo]

It’s temporary, yes. Basically just collateral to promise you’ll show up for the court hearings.

Often they’re paid through bondsman who finance bonds (you pay them a fee). Which also results in a bounty hunting industry for the people that do run away.

[conductr]

Also of note, if you can’t pay the fee or give the bondsman some collateral for his service, your court date may be many months or even years in the future and the date can be postponed many times along the way. So you will be in jail that whole time. If you’re given a prison sentence, time served is usually applied towards it. If you’re found innocent or otherwise not given a prison sentence, your life was just ruined. It’s kind of a bad deal but mostly hurts the poor so nobody cares to fix it.

Innocent until proven guilty is kind of a lie. The US has so many edge cases like this where our US Constitutional rights have been severely neutered.