Friday, February 26, 2010
Editorial: A favor for bondsmen
The House passed a bill that could prove expensive for Virginia but lucrative for bail bondsmen.
From the RoundTable blog
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In Broward County, Fla., bail bondsmen spread donations and hired a lobbyist to convince county commissioners to gut a spectacularly successful program to keep defendants out of jail prior to trial.
The program saved taxpayers in Broward literally millions of dollars. Pretrial diversion using electronic monitoring and other methods to track defendants cost the county $7 a day per inmate. Keeping that same person in jail costs $115 a day. But it took some business from bondsmen, who put up bail for defendants in exchange for a nonrefundable 10-percent fee.
So, as National Public Radio reported last month, two years after Broward County commissioners voted to double the program's funding, the same commissioners voted to gut it. It was an appalling example of a special interest -- and its cash -- winning out over the public interest.
And, as NPR also reported, bail bondsmen across the nation took note, including those in Virginia. They convinced Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, and Del. Dave Albo, RFairfax County, to introduce a bill similar to the ordinance passed in Broward making pretrial diversion programs accessible only to indigent defendants.
This bill, which passed the House of Delegates and is awaiting consideration in a Senate committee, would result in more business for bondsmen almost certainly. But it would also result in defendants who aren't indigent but cannot afford bond ending up in jail -- costing the state and localities money they simply do not have and crowding already overcrowded jails.
The bill would benefit no one but bondsmen. The fact that it passed the House should shame those who voted for it.
In Broward County, bondsmen gave about $23,000 to county commissioners, including $5,000 to just one commissioner days before the vote to gut the pretrial diversion program.
Anyone else wondering how much bondsmen have been donating to Albo, Petersen and others lately?
The Senate should kill this bill. Now.
