I know the majority of people do not understand how bail bonds works. In my entire career two people have been very anti-bail bonds, feeling that bail agents prey on the poor. I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. You can only bail out of jail if you can afford it. Nobody is extorting money from the poor to get them out of jail. The right to a reasonable bail amount is in our Constitution. I am most definitely positive that the people that are against the idea of bail, have never been arrested.
With that being said, let me explain to you in very simple terms how bail bonds works.
Each crime has a set bail amount. The bail agent puts up the full amount of the bail for you to the court, and you pay a premium. It is just like an insurance policy. You pay a premium to your car insurance every month, yet you are covered for a certain amount...
The state of California mandates that we are to charge a 10% or 8% premium for this service. The bail agent gets the full amount of the bail that was put up for you back, when the case is over.
As a client to a bail agent, your only obligation is to go to court. If you do not go to court the bail agent is held responsible for the full amount of your bail. At the very lowest that would be $10,000. So when I put up 10, 20, 30,
40 or 50 Thousand Dollars for you in the middle of the night, I'm trusting you. So when somebody doesn't go to court on something as trivial as a traffic warrant or a DUI violation, it's incredibly ungrateful and inconsiderate. A bail agent literally cannot sleep when they have a skip. Imagine if you put $30,000 on the line for somebody and then you cannot find them. It is beyond stressful. The fact is, that it's part of the job and you try to deal with the stress a little bit better each time. So you don't get ulcers or so that you don't lose your hair. It's an awful part of the job because I am in this business to get people OUT of jail. I'm not in business to put people in jail, that's the polar opposite of what I do! But I am not going to lose $20,000 or $50,000 or any money at all! With technology today people should know that it will catch up with them pretty quickly. So don't bail out if you cannot do the time, especially if it's going to be community service or something as trivial as that! It's amazing to me how people create a tiny little ball of trouble and then they snowball it into years of trouble and debt, and then they point the finger at everybody else and say this is why!
This blog is to give people a little bit of insight into this unique career. It is not easy, and it can be beyond stressful. This is why I always thank people as much as I can, because if you take the time, or even a moment to care or even think about what my business is up to, I sincerely appreciate that, & I thank you.
