Bail agents worry about their future
Bond businesses fight back against groundbreaking law
Most of the bail bond offices lining Bryant Street favor function over form. The agents who work near San Francisco’s Hall of Justice and main jail sit behind modest desks, between unadorned walls, as they take calls on landlines and meet with a walk-in or two a day. It’s not the type of industry that invites clients to get cozy.
Geri Campana’s office, Al Graf Bail Bonds, is different. The space is a museum of sorts, showcasing a bygone era of crime and punishment: A blown-up photo of a now-deceased Hells Angel, news clippings heralding infamous crimes and a Japanese internment poster — a nod to Campana’s Japanese American heritage and her parents, who were both sent to camps.
In a little more than a year, Campana’s company may also be a relic of the past. When Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB10 on Tuesday, California became the first state in the nation to eliminate the cash bail system for defendants awaiting trial, potentially wiping out the bail bond industry.
“It’s just a matter of, what do you do?” said Campana, who has owned her company for 35 years. “I wouldn’t have an answer right now. I really wouldn’t.”
As she spoke, bail agents worried for their survival were seeking to block the new law, which is set to go into effect in October 2019. An industry coalition launched a referendum drive seeking to give voters the final say on the issue. If backers gather enough signatures, the measure would appear on the November 2020 ballot, and the bail reform law would be put on hold.
SB10 gets rid of a framework that requires newly arrested defendants to put up bail, in an amount based on the seriousness of the charges, to be freed while awaiting trial. Instead, individual judges will use assessments of defendants’ history to decide whether they are safe enough to release, potentially with government check-ins or a GPS monitor.
The bill was held up as a more equitable form of criminal justice, since the cash bail system often keeps poor people in jail before trial because they can’t afford to pay their way out. More than 48,000 county jail inmates in California — two-thirds of the jail population — have not yet been convicted of a crime, and most of them are being held because they are unable to post bail, according to a recent state study.
States like New Mexico and New Jersey have scaled back cash bail in recent years, but California’s abolition of the system has heightened debate over the changes. Those in the bail bond industry, as well as some progressive organizations that wanted even stronger reforms, say SB10 may keep more people in jail without the possibility of bail.
Both sides of the debate agree on one thing: If the law stands, the industry is doomed.
For SB10 supporters, bail agents are collateral damage in a good cause. “We were not out to attack any industry, not out to get anyone,” said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, DAlameda, who co-authored the bill with Sen. Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys. “We set out to create the fairest, most just, safest policy throughout the state as possible.”
Bonta said the current system is a job-killer for those who can’t afford bail and therefore can’t get to work. The new system, he said, will create more jobs for those who work in pretrial services.
“I’m not sure what’s going to happen to the bail industry,” Bonta said. “What is certain is it won’t be business as usual. Business as usual created too much anguish, too much pain and too much harm to too many Californians.”
Hertzberg’s press secretary, Katie Hanzlik, said the bill took into account studies of the bail industry, including one that found the state Department of Insurance had received over 200 complaints about bail agents in 2015, “with violations ranging from minor violations of the Insurance Code to felony criminal activity.”
After researching the lightly regulated industry, Hanzlik said, the bill’s authors concluded that the “system does not work in its intended way.”
About 3,200 bail agents are licensed in California, according to the Department of Insurance. Bond companies make money by charging defendants a nonrefundable 10 percent fee to post bail, though those in the industry say they often charge less. As of 2014, according to a study released by the state Judicial Council, bail agents in California were collecting more than $308 million a year in fees.
Gloria Mitchell, an agent based in Pomona (Los Angeles County) and the president of the California Bail Agents Association, said dismantling the industry will hurt thousands of other employees and vendors.
“Personally, and as a business owner, everybody is devastated,” Mitchell said. She said many agents saw the writing on the wall for months, and already moved on, but added, “A lot of us, including myself, think the right thing to do is to fight.”
In Oakland, where many of the dozen-plus bail bond outfits sit near the jail and courthouse, company owners said they were shocked at how quickly the bill got under the governor’s pen.
“Ninety percent of my clients are minorities,” said James Rudisill, the owner of a firm bearing his name. “This will not be fair for them.”
At All-Pro Bail Bonds, which has Bay Area offices in Oakland and San Francisco and as far south as Gilroy, owner Steffan Gibbs also asserted SB10 would hurt minorities, saying bail “is the only thing that protects the right to get out of jail (before trial). The bill denies that right.”
Campana, the San Francisco business owner, said all industries have their bad apples and that she has been disappointed by critics’ negative branding of bail bond agents.
A single mother and widow, Campana said the company has allowed her to provide for her family and help people along the way. She said it’s not unusual for her to coach people on how to navigate the criminal justice system, or to advise them to hold off on posting bail if she thinks the amount could be reduced.
“We’re not big money people,” she said. “Many of us are minorities, many of us are women that are licensed, and we support our families. And it’s not a matter of living a big lifestyle like they portray us to be.”