Philadelphia Bail Bonds

The Philadelphia Bail Bond System

A recent article written by Tony West (www.phillyrecord.com) states that Philadelphia's public bail bond system is a complete disaster. Philadelphia had originally thought that a public run bail bond system would bring more money into the city coffers and had worked to push the commercial bail

bonds industry out of the picture. Unfortunately, the commercial system had more incentives to individuals working with flight risk defendants than did public servants and with the push towards a public system a rise in “skips” occurred. Philadelphia's District Attorney's Office and Public Defender's Office have come together to try and ward off the reintroduction of private bail bondsmen to Philadelphia city courts, but public opinion (not to mention statistics are not on their side).

Many suggestions have been made as to how the system might be fixed. One of the workers from the DA's Office recommended tracking down back bail money owed by "skips" (defendant's who skipped out on their bail). It is estimated that the total amount of money associated with skips is right around the $1 billion mark. Considering that in a public system, asking the judicial system to “find” an individual who has “skipped” is no different than asking a police officer to re-find a suspect he or she has found before shows a clear redundancy of effort and a thinning of resources. In a commercial system, this is handled by the bail bondsmen (or not handled as they keep tabs on the individual prior, only losing 2% of their clients to “skips”). Currently, the more "skips" or no-shows means more defaulted deposits (which is 10% of the posted bond) are kept by the courts as income. The only time the bond is refunded is when the defendant shows up to their respective court date. This provides incentive for negligent behavior on the part of the court system and does not serve the common good. Compare the 1-2% skip rate under the private bail bond system and Philadelphia's current 7% no-show rate and the math speaks for itself.

A private bail bond system has worked in just about every single state in the Union. It places the onus of responsibility on the defendant and the bail bondsman, as well as, providing incentive to return an individual to custody who has exhibited criminal behavior by fleeing the justice of the courts. Bail bondsmen work with defendants and their families to remove the individual from negative influence, support a disciplined and structured existence, and to strengthen the judicial system by enforcing the dictates of the courts. A Philadelphia bail bondsman has the ability, the time, and the resources to check in with defendants, to see that they are living in an environment that is free of the temptation that got them into trouble to begin with. Asking the court system that obviously does not have the time to move from arraignment to trial expeditiously to spend additional time and resources into the monitoring of a defendant is rather foolish.

Philadelphia bail bond agencies served the community better than the public system and there is a currently a demand for a return to a commercial system for this reason.

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What our bail agents will need from you:

• Defendants Full Name
• Prior Arrest information
• Defendants Date of Birth
• Bond Amount

Sheriff's Department
100 S Broad St # 5
Philadelphia, PA 19110
(215) 686-3530

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