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Comment by rallison | Hacker News Reader

If the downsides weren't so significant, then sure, the pro side makes sense.

But the downsides are incredibly significant - that you have huge numbers of people who spend time in jail or spend money for a bail bond, who are indeed innocent, is a sign of a fundamentally broken system.

> It should be relative to your ability to pay

Sure, this would help, but I suspect it would still end up often unjustly impacting those who are poorer and innocent.

If people don't show up for trial, charge them for that then.

But pre trial, while presumed innocent, aside from unique high flight risk scenarios? The bail system is terrible, and fundamentally unfair.

Edit: to be clear, making it relative to ability to pay, and eliminating commercial bail bondsmen would be a big step in the right direction. I still think that's rife with issues, but it would be significantly better than what we have now.

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Fundamentally the idea of a surety doesn't work for the really poor. If you don't have anything to put up as collateral, you don't have anything to loose by skipping bail.

The flip side of that, is if you are really poor you have less resources to use making your escape, so maybe the bail system is less needed.

But just because the bail system doesn't work well for poor people doesn't mean its also broken for middle class people.

> you don't have anything to put up as collateral, you don't have anything to loose by skipping bail.

This right here is the problem. Addressing this would probably solve the bail issue too.

The question should perhaps be: is America ready to do what it takes to address poverty?

> If you don't have anything to put up as collateral, you don't have anything to loose by skipping bail.

That doesn't seem correct. Wouldn't that really only be the case for guilty people, whereas innocent people would turn up in order to be proven innocent - assuming (perhaps wrongly) that they'd win?

I don't think poor people in the US would assume they win. And that is one major factor: when there is little to nothing to gain by staying Wwithin the system, but a lot to lose, why would you stay?

Another issue is that showing up isn't free. At the very least, it costs time. Remark that defendants typically aren't compensated, even if acquitted. If you're poor, you might not be able to afford to attend.

You could reduce some of the downsides by reducing the amount required for bail by day and by adding limits for how long someone could be required to stay.

Also an automated system to calculate bail and maximum duration (as in not the judge deciding) might reduce some bias, so some categories of potential crimes don’t end up in jail while awaiting trial unless it’s a repeated offense.

Another approach could be to account for the pre trial days more favorably for the defendant: x days pre trial count for 2x days if convicted or need to get reimbursed at the higher of minimum rate or more than the loss of income. This approach would require a way to make sure judges don’t collude though.

> You could reduce some of the downsides by reducing the amount required for bail by day and by adding limits for how long someone could be required to stay

Either the amount is sufficient to prevent the accused from hopping on a plane to Bali, or it isn't. If a lesser amount would have sufficied than that should have been the amount in the first place.

Bail isn't meant as a punishment, its meant as a way to ensure you don't leave town. If you could just wait it out, everyone who wanted to run would just wait it out, and you would end up bssically creating a system that just hinders "good" people while not serving its purpose of preventing people from skipping out.

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