A new report finds that the global insurance companies underwriting bonds are reaping their rewards while shouldering virtually none of their risk. Forcing people awaiting trial to pay bail in order to get out jail is, to say the least, a flawed way of pursuing justice.

The accused or their family can be required to put down money in order to return home as they await a trial which can take months, years, or never even happen —which in practice has disproportionately hurt communities that are low-income because they struggle to come up with the necessary funds and black who see higher rates of jail time, like other communities of color.

The deaths of Sandra Bland , Jeffrey Pendleton , and Kalief Browder —all of whom were black and remained unable to post bail after being arrested—have publicized how so many Americans are unable to get out of jail because of bail requirements. On top of that, black defendants between the ages of 18 and 29 years old were asked to pay, on average, higher sums for bail and were less likely to be released on their own recognizance, meaning no bail payment was required.

The report finds that around 70 percent of those currently in jail have yet to be convicted of a crime. Between and , the share of people arrested who were required to post money bail grew from 37 percent to 61 percent, according to the report. In a standard bail agreement, families that have enough money to post bail give it directly to the court and get their money returned once a case is over.

The sums that families lose in the for-profit bail system is striking. Looking at discrepancies by race makes the findings even bleaker. The study also illuminates the structure of the bail-bond industry, and where it gets its capital. In fact, the only two countries that allow companies to operate for-profit bail operations are the United States and the Philippines.

While bail-bond services are often associated with the myriad small storefronts that can be found in poor communities across the country, many of them, the report finds, are actually run by large global insurance companies. The bail system, in theory, is supposed to minimize the risk that an arrested party will inhibit the legal process, usually by failing to show up for court or fleeing the area.

The threat of losing the money posted for bail is supposed to deter such evasive tactics. When people rely on bail bonds, they become involved in a complex transfer of money and risk, such that families generally wind up on the hook, the study finds. But unlike insurance one might take out on a car or home, surety bonds place the risk and requirement for full payment on the person who takes out the bond. According to Color of Change and the ACLU, it rarely comes to that. In essence, families wind up taking on debt and risk while bond companies and insurers mostly just get the profit of the bail premiums, fees, and fines that families pay.

Overall, the industry is a profitable and fairly concentrated one. Though there are more than 25, bail-bonds companies across the U. The report finds that private-equity firms play a role, but their holdings are often murky because global insurers build in several layers of opaque corporate structures between their corporate brand, bond-insurance operations, and bail-bonds storefronts. And these insurers make serious lobbying efforts to keep things this way, making reform even harder.

To understand how the standoff between Pyongyang and the world became so dire, it helps to go back to the country's founding.

Performance Bond l Bid Bond l Payment Bond l Contract Bond l Contract Surety l Surety One

This project is supported by a grant from the John D. ATLANTA—Around midnight, hours after their candidate conceded he had lost the Most Important Special Election in History, the last remaining supporters of Jon Ossoff took over the stage where he had recently stood.

One of them waved a bottle of vodka in the air. Together, they took up the time-honored leftist chant: But after a frenzied two-month runoff campaign between Ossoff and his Republican opponent, Karen Handel, the Democrat wound up with about the same proportion of the vote—48 percent—as Hillary Clinton got here in November. If this race was a referendum on Trump, the president won it. If the party cares about winning, it needs to learn how to appeal to the white working class.

The strategy was simple.

A demographic wave—long-building, still-building—would carry the party to victory, and liberalism to generational advantage. The wave was inevitable, unstoppable. It would not crest for many years, and in the meantime, there would be losses—losses in the midterms and in special elections; in statehouses and in districts and counties and municipalities outside major cities.

Losses in places and elections where the white vote was especially strong. But the presidency could offset these losses. Every four years the wave would swell, receding again thereafter but coming back in the next presidential cycle, higher, higher. The presidency was everything. With the powers in Pyongyang working doggedly toward making this possible—building an ICBM and shrinking a nuke to fit on it—analysts now predict that Kim Jong Un will have the capability before Donald Trump completes one four-year term.

Though given to reckless oaths, Trump is not in this case saying anything that departs significantly from the past half century of futile American policy toward North Korea. Preventing the Kim dynasty from having a nuclear device was an American priority long before Pyongyang exploded its first nuke, in , during the administration of George W. The Kim regime detonated four more while Barack Obama was in the White House. In the more than four decades since Richard Nixon held office, the U.

The Republican triumph in an affluent, educated Georgia congressional district showed GOP voters standing by their president. Notwithstanding national polls suggesting about 39 percent approval for the Republican president, a more-or-less standard-issue Republican candidate won by about 4 percentage points in exactly the kind of affluent, educated district supposedly most at risk in the Trump era. But a big win is not the same thing as good news. The special elections of May and June offered Republicans a last chance for a course correction before the election cycle starts in earnest.

A loss in Georgia would have sent a message of caution. The victory discredits that argument, and empowers those who want Trumpism without restraint, starting with the president himself. A new book points to the importance of strong conservative parties—and warns about the consequences when they fall short. Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy is written in fire. It delves deep into long-forgotten electoral histories to emerge with insights of Tocquevillian power, to illuminate not only the past but also the present and future.

The non-rich always outnumber the rich. Democracy enables the many to outvote the few: If the few possess power and wealth, they may respond to this prospect by resisting democracy before it arrives—or sabotaging it afterward. Humans aren't the only mammals who kill each other. So how do we stack up to lions, tigers, and bears? Global News Notes Photo Video Events Writers Projects. Magazine Current issue All issues Manage subscription Subscribe.

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Release: The Bail Bond Industry is For Profit, But Not For Good — Justice Policy Institute

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