If you learned about the American justice system in grade school, then you’re probably familiar with the Miranda rights (the right to remain silent, to an attorney, etc.). You’re probably also aware of the fact that a court can set a bail fee to be posted by the prisoner or someone they know to release them from jail. While bail is important and allows a person to be released from jail, usually awaiting a trial or conviction, there is more than one way to pay it.
If someone has been arrested and is being held in jail, felony criminal bonds may be a solution to paying the set bail fee. Bail bondsmen work in a way that is similar to any other bonds person. Typically, the bail bond service will charge a non-refundable fee for services rendered. This usually amounts to an estimated 10% or so of the amount of the bail fee. If you go to a bail bond company, the likelihood of posting a bail that is far smaller than the original fee is pretty good. The only issue with this method of payment, however, is the non-refundable fee that you must pay the bail bond service.
An important fact to keep in mind is that bail bonds companies are not lawyers. They will help you post bail, but after that any proceedings in court are for an attorney to handle. Currently, there are about 14,000 bail agents working in the U.S. alone. If that’s not an indicator as to how frequently felony criminal bonds are used to post bail, then who knows what is? Research shows that in the last 20 years, the amount of citizens in need of bail has increased over 30%. While that may seem like a bad statistic for the justice system, it actually isn’t terrible. These numbers don’t mean that horrible people are going to be released out onto the streets! In all likelihood, most of these people are victims or committers of minor crimes or misdemeanors.
The good news is that those numbers also mean that there’s a much better chance of the set bail being posted using felony criminal bonds. A bail bond agency is there to help families and friends post bail for a person who may not necessarily have committed an atrocious crime. This isn’t to condone any sort of crime, but the justice system is often tied down by long, tiring processes, and the faster people can sort through them, the better!
