Our research backs up what I found on the street: Bail bondsmen and bounty hunters get their charges to show up for trial, and they recapture them quickly when they do flee. Nationally, the failure-to-appear rate for defendants released on commercial bail is 28 percent lower than the rate for defendants released on their own recognizance, and 18 percent lower than the rate for those released on government bond.
Even more important, when a defendant does skip town, the bounty hunters are the ones who pursue justice with the greatest determination and energy. Defendants sought by bounty hunters are a whopping 50 percent less likely to be on the loose after one year than other bail jumpers.
The results of the Manhattan Bail Project seemed to support the position of progressives who argued that commercial bail was unnecessary. But all that the findings really demonstrated was that a few carefully selected felony defendants could be safely released on their own recognizance. In reality, the project allowed relatively few defendants to be let go and so could easily cherry pick those who were most likely to appear at trial. As pretrial release programs expanded in the late 1960s and early ’70s, failure-to-appear rates increased.
Today, when a defendant fails to appear, an arrest warrant is issued. But if the defendant was released on his own recognizance or on government bail, very little else happens. In many states and cities, the police are overwhelmed with outstanding arrest warrants. In California, about two million warrants have gone unserved. Many are for minor offenses, but hundreds of thousands are for felonies, including thousands of homicides.
Excellent little article, and I also posted the author’s paper in Scribd. What fascinates me about bounty hunting/commercial bail is that it is an incentivized system of fugitive recovery that works. It has all the elements needed to survive and flourish, all with the focus on capturing bad guys. This system also rewards those that are good at it.
To study this type of incentivized crime fighting helps me to envision the various types of incentivized war fighting that I have mentioned in the past–like privateering. Creating an industry out of destroying your enemies, or creating an industry out of capturing your criminals can be very effective.
The other part of this paper that I liked is how it showed through statistics why states or cities that do not allow bounty hunting/commercial bail are using systems that suck. That arrest warrants are piling up in these states and cities because they are too afraid of allowing private industry to take part in their justice systems. Meanwhile, the states and cities that do allow this type of activity are able to benefit in two ways. Keeping control of fugitives, or benefiting from the forfeiture of that fugitive’s bond. During a tough economy, this forfeiture could be funding all sorts of public services or schools. Interesting stuff and be sure to check out the paper too. –Matt
The Bounty Hunter’s Pursuit of Justice
by Alex Tabarrok
Winter 2011
When felony defendants jump bail, bounty hunters spring into action. It’s a uniquely American system, and it works.
Andrew Luster had it all: a multimillion-dollar trust fund, good looks, and a bachelor pad just off the beach in Mussel Shoals, California. Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor, spent his days surfing and his nights cruising the clubs. His life would have been sad but unremarkable if he had not had a fetish for sex with unconscious women. When one woman alleged rape, Luster claimed mutual consent, but the videotapes the police discovered when they searched his home told a different story. Eventually, more than 10 women came forward, and he was convicted of 20 counts of rape and sentenced to 124 years in prison. There was only one problem. Luster could not be found.
Shortly before he was expected to take the stand, Luster withdrew funds from his brokerage accounts, found a caretaker for his dog, and skipped town on a $1 million bail bond. The FBI put Luster on its most-wanted list, but months passed with no results. In the end, the authorities did not find him. But Luster was brought to justice—by a dog (or at least a man who goes by that name). Duane Chapman, star of the A&E reality TV show Dog: The Bounty Hunter, tracked Luster for months. He picked up clues to Luster’s whereabouts from old phone bills and from Luster’s mother, who inadvertently revealed that her son spoke fluent Spanish. He also gleaned useful information from a mysterious Mr. X who taunted him by e-mail and who may have been Luster himself. Finally, a tip from someone who had seen Dog on television brought Chapman to a small town in Mexico known for its great surfing. Days later, he and his team spotted Luster at a taco stand, apprehended him, and turned him over to the local police.
Go to this link here to read the rest.
