Early Fresno County Jail releases hurt bail bond businesses [The Fresno Bee, Calif.]

July 15--Early inmate releases from the Fresno County Jail have done more than just frustrate law enforcement officials and put local residents on edge. They have hammered the local bail bond industry.

At Lucky Bail Bonds, owner Barry Pearlstein said business is down 60% over the past four years. Albert Ramirez Jr. says business at Albert Ramirez Bail Bonds is half what it was in 2008.

The reason is simple: If inmates are being released because of an overcrowded jail, they don't need to post bail. Without bail, there is little need for a bail bond agent.

And when a person is released early from jail without having to post bail, their chances of showing up for court hearings drop, those in the bail bond industry said.

Jail overcrowding -- and the resulting early inmate releases -- is not new in Fresno County. But the county's recent budget problems prompted staffing cuts and the closure of jail floors.

On top of that, Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment plan has low-level inmates serving their time in county jails instead of state prisons. Bail bond agents say the early release problem will continue -- and possibly grow -- in Fresno County.

"It's 100 times worse than it was 10 years ago," Pearlstein said. "At that time, we were releasing maybe a few hundred people a year. Now we're releasing upwards of 10,000 per year. That's in Fresno County. It is off-the-charts insanity."

Jail records show that an average of 40 to 60 inmates are being released early each day, a trend that started in 2010 as jail capacity shrunk.

Vera Robles-Dewitt, the owner of Carson Bail Bonds and current president of the California Bail Agents Association, said her private-sector industry takes on the responsibility for an accused criminal to appear in court.

Without bail, she and other bail bond agents said, there is less incentive for people to show up for a court date. She said they can -- and are -- thumbing their nose at the criminal justice system.

"There's no accountability," said Mark Garcia, a <location value="LU/us.ca.staaus" idsrc="xmltag.org">Stanislaus County resident who owns Garcia Family Bail Bonds. "There's no consequences. We are set up for a real rude awakening here in the next 10 years" as the children of criminals see that "crime does pay."

Typically, the bail process works like this:

A person arrested is booked and can post bail to be released from jail. That bail amount is either set by a judge or by a document showing pre-determined amounts for certain crimes.

For those unable to afford the bail, a bail bond company will charge the suspect 10% -- sometimes 8% -- of the bail amount, and in turn put up a surety bond for the entire amount, ensuring that the person makes all court appearances. The bail bond company also collects collateral from the suspect's family to further ensure the person will make the court dates.

If the suspect makes all court hearings and the matter is concluded, the bond is cleared and the bail bond company keeps the 10% as its fee. If the person jumps bail, the bail bond company has 180 days to find him or her -- or be on the hook for the entire bail amount.

Because of jail overcrowding, however, many of those arrested -- especially on low-level charges -- are released from jail before having to post bail.

There also are times when a suspect can't make bail and is sitting in jail awaiting the next court hearing -- only to be released because of overcrowding.

Pearlstein related a recent case in which a client was facing several heavy weapons charges -- and $122,600 bail. The man made bail and was freed from Fresno County Jail, but when he went to court, the prosecutor looked at the charges and asked the judge to raise bail to $147,500.

The judge agreed, and the man was returned to jail. As Pearlstein was working to get more collateral from the man's family for the higher bail amount, he was released from the jail because of overcrowding.

As bad as it is now, local bail agents say it will only get worse -- not only in Fresno, but across the state -- as convicted criminals take up bed space in local jails under realignment.

"This is what the rest of the state will be like in a couple of years," predicted Ramirez Jr.

That means not only will the bottom line likely continue to suffer for local bail bond agents, company owners said, but public safety will continue to be compromised as well.

When a bail bond is involved, Pearlstein said, less than 1% of those facing criminal charges fail to appear in court. And a bail bond business on the hook for the bail amount likely will employ a bounty hunter to track down someone who jumps bail.

If the bail bond industry isn't involved, Robles-Dewitt said, it likely will fall to law enforcement -- and, ultimately, taxpayers -- to track down those failing to show up to court.

For now, the industry is becoming hyper-competitive as the bail bonds companies in Fresno County compete for a smaller pool of clients.

One option is cutting the fee -- 10% of the bond amount is common -- to 8%. And companies also may be more willing to take on riskier clients with high bail and a serious charge. Those are people who might be more tempted to jump bail and flee town.

Garcia -- who got his start at Albert Ramirez Bail Bonds in 1994 -- closed his Fresno office around five years ago because there wasn't enough business as the jail began releasing more defendants.

Pearlstein, of Lucky Bail Bonds, said he has been able to stay open because of business from surrounding counties and an office in the Southern California town of Indio, which together "balance the wheels on the wagons."

"Otherwise," he said, "the wheels would come completely off."

Bail bond agents also are concerned about proposed bills coming in the Legislature.

Among them are Senate Bill 210, which would expand the pool of suspects eligible to be released without bail to include those accused of felonies that, upon conviction, would be served in county jails instead of state prisons. To make such a ruling, a judge must find that the suspect is not a threat to the public.

However, if the judge decided bail was required because the person was a threat, the bill would require the judge to list the reasons.

And if a judge finds that bail is needed, the bill also would give him leeway to set the amount lower than what is listed for the crime.

Bail agents say it would increase the number of defendants being released from jail without bail while their case works its way through the criminal justice system.

"We keep creating laws that make it easier to release people from custody and easier to empty out the jail because they are concerned with overcrowding," Pearlstein said. "What we are doing is defeating the whole purpose for having laws on the books."

The reporter can be reached at [email protected] or (559) 441-6320.

___

(c)2012 The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.)

Visit The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.) at www.fresnobee.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services