Benefits

Benefits

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.

  1. Provides pretrial release and monitoring services at no cost to taxpayers.
  2. Provides the opportunity for many defendants to secure their freedom while awaiting disposition of their case1.
  3. Reduces jail population by providing a means for defendants to obtain pretrial release.
  4. Creates an incentive to insure that defendants appear in court because the bail agent is liable for defendants who fail to appear.
  5. The bail agent’s authority to arrest provides an investigative and enforcement system to return failures to appear at no cost to the taxpayers.
  6. 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.

1The 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.