The North Carolina Bail Agents Association believes it is important to highlight the importance of private bail. The following are several benefits provided by our industry.
- Provides pretrial release and monitoring services at no cost to taxpayers.
- Provides the opportunity for many defendants to secure their freedom while awaiting disposition of their case.1
- Reduces jail population by providing a means for defendants to obtain pretrial release.
- Creates an incentive to insure that defendants appear in court because the bail agent is liable for defendants who fail to appear.
- The bail agent’s authority to arrest provides an investigative and enforcement system to return failures to appear at no cost to the taxpayers.
- The bail agent’s reputation for arrest of defendants who fail to appear is an added motivation for many defendants to appear that is not present in other types of release.
1 The Bureau of Justice Statistics: Pretrial Release of Felony Defendants in State Courts; Thomas Cohen, Ph.D. and Brian A. Reaves, Ph.D.; November 2007; Page 4.
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