Check out the new blog post from AIA’s Chief Executive Officer Brian Nairin at Behind the Paper With Brian Nairin. Brian, discusses the lastest anti-bail myths and materials being disseminated by the Pretrial Justice Institute.
Behind the Paper With Brian Nairin
Pretrial Release Agencies: Bail Bond Myths? Propaganda? Or Just Misguided Fantasy?
I just finished reading the latest piece of fictional research being disseminated by the Pretrial Justice Institute (PJI), and I thought I would share my thoughts on it. While I do enjoy a good crime novel every once and a while, this specific story fell short in both storyline and substance. And while I don’t typically like to ruin a good story or give away the end, I am not really worried about that here because to be honest, there is nothing new to this latest story that hasn’t been said previously.
PJI once again has decided to put time, effort, and more likely than not, your tax-dollars into disseminating anti-bail propaganda to try and discredit the commercial bail bond industry. For those of you who don’t know who PJI is, they are the leading advocate for the elimination of all commercial bail in every instance of release pending trial. So it is no mystery why they continuously go after and try and undermine the commercial bail industry and its proven effectiveness. In this latest attempt, they have gone after several research studies. Their focus is on discrediting and pointing out “so-called” limitations in not one, not two, but SIX different research studies that all prove that financially secured release is more effective than other forms of release (specifically unsecured release). And please know that these research studies weren’t conducted in the back office of a bail bond agents retail operation, as it almost feels like the PJI community would like you to believe. But rather the studies that PJI is trying to discredit are coming from some of the nation’s leading research and criminal justice experts and Universities, including The University of Arizona, The US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, and The University of Chicago to name a few.
What is eerily missing from this story is a single study that shows that unsecured release is the most effective form of pretrial release. Why is that? Because one doesn’t exist. Why is that? Because anyone who looks at comparing these forms of release (like the six studies referenced in the study PJI is disseminating) all come to the same conclusion…that financially secured bail outperforms unsecured bail in appearance rates and recidivism rates every time. Remember, we aren’t talking about a single study; we are talking about 6 studies.
As one of its conclusions, PJI suggests that more research be conducted to determine the best way to manage pretrial populations. But to be honest, do we really need more research to show us that financially secured release is the most effective form of release only to have PJI than discredit the research because it didn’t help push their anti-commercial bail agenda. I don’t think so….
Read the full blog post by clicking on the following link: Pretrial Release Agencies: Bail Bond Myths? Propaganda? Or Just Misguided Fantasy?