Turning a blind eye to the bail bond industry
Last April, Raad Almansoori was booked in an Orlando jail and charged with assaulting and sexually battering a woman and then stealing her car. When Orlando’s 9th Circuit prosecutors dropped all but the car theft charges and reduced his bail in
June, the 26-year-old was able to pay a for-profit bail bonds agent $2,500 to secure his freedom. Months later, Almansoori appeared to have fled the state, violating one of the conditions of his release. From there, he has been accused of repeated acts of violence against women across several state lines: He traveled to New York City, where he allegedly murdered a 38-yearold mom in a Manhattan hotel, and then he fled to Phoenix, Arizona, where he is accused of stabbing two women. Finally, in late February, he was apprehended and detained in Maricopa County.
The tragic case has drawn national attention, with Arizona and New York officials sparring publicly over Almansoori’s extradition. However, there is little to no discussion of the role played by the for-profit bail bonds industry. The hypocrisy of this rings loud and clear. Almansoori was only able to leave police custody in Florida because a bail bonds company stood to profit from his release.
Like many other states, Florida’s bail bonds agents are not subject to oversight from any agency working in the criminal justice system. Instead, the state’s Department of Financial Services regulates bail bond agent licenses as a business. Here’s how it works: A bail bonds agent will post a person’s bail in exchange for a fee, typically 10% of the total bond. These fees are nonrefundable, and the bail bond industry is estimated to collect as much as $2.4 billion in profit from these payments each year.
The vast majority of bail bonds agents engage in no process to determine whether an individual has a safe home to return to, a phone by which to receive court notifications or a ride to subsequent court dates. Their pursuit is profit, and that requires maintenance of the cash bail system. In essence, the courts are turning power over to a for-profit industry that allows bail bonds agents to decide whether a person will be released on bail pending trial. This eclipses a judge’s decision of whether to release or detain a person pretrial based on the facts of the case, rather than their access to money.
By contrast, criminal justice reform organizations, such as The Bail Project, have been tackling the issue at its root. By posting free bail assistance and providing pretrial support for nearly 30,000 low-income individuals and analyzing their rates of return to court, The Bail Project has shown that people return to 91% of their court dates without having any of their own money on the line. This evidence lays waste to the myth that bail and bail bond companies are necessary for the proper functioning of a justice system.
And yet, despite growing evidence that the cash bail system is fundamentally flawed, charitable bail organizations have come under increasing attack. So far in 2024, at least five states have introduced regulatory or restrictive legislation aimed at charitable bail funds. This comes in the wake of other states trying to pass similar legislation in recent years.
Meanwhile, market analysis of the bail bonds industry shows that it has grown 4.3% each year on average between 2018 and 2023. Today there are around 15,000 bail bonds agents across the country. Each year they bail out around 2 million people and rake in billions in profits while lobbying aggressively to expand the cash bail system and restrict charitable bail organizations.
The truth is, our pretrial system is largely dependent on a for-profit model that has rarely been called into question. Until we can move this conversation more productively toward systemic solutions and away from polarized debates, we are doomed to continue to shift blame onto judges, prosecutors and sometimes charitable bail funds. These individuals are treated as if they can predict the future and are held to a standard that one group — the for-profit bail bonds industry — is noticeably exempt from.
Erin George is national policy director of The Bail Project, a national nonprofit that advances policy changes at the local, state and national levels through the provision of free bail assistance and pretrial support to thousands of low-income people every year.