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Google Will Ban Bail-Bond Ads (arstechnica.com)
First Google banned ads from payday lenders in 2016, now it will no longer allow ads from bail-bond companies. Ars Technica reports: In a blog post, the company suggested that such ads constitute a "deceptive or harmful product," citing a 2016 study concluding that minority and low-income communities are typically most affected by such services. "For-profit bail-bond providers make most of their revenue from communities of color and low-income neighborhoods when they are at their most vulnerable, including through opaque financing offers that can keep people in debt for months or years," Google wrote. Also in 2016, another study found that "there are 646,000 people locked up in more than 3,000 local jails throughout the U.S.," simply for their inability to pay a bond, which is what drives many people to the services of a bondsman. The change will take effect in July 2018.
The problem isn't the bail bondsmen. The problem are American courts that set excessive bail and keep people in jail for relatively minor crimes (often victimless crimes like drug possession) in the hope that they agree to a plea bargain.
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The arraignment doesn't even start until after your bond hearing, so you don't plea anything at that point, let alone make a plea bargain. The purpose of the bond is an assurance that you'll show up to court when it is time for your arraignment, which is when you'll make your plea. If you don't show up to court, the court keeps all of your money, then they issue a warrant for your arrest, only now you're guilty of another offense as well. If you don't post bond, then you wait in detention until it is time for your arraignment.
Judges don't always require you to pay a bond. They make this decision based on whether they think you're a flight risk. Chances are that if you have a decent job, own a business, own a house, have a reputation of being a responsible person, or have other life situations that you aren't likely to want to just suddenly abandon, then the judge will do what's called an RoR, which requires no bond. Things like not paying child support, showing a propensity towards violence, believing that your decision to shoplift was somebody else's fault (i.e. you're irresponsible,) and the like, will make the judge more likely to raise your bond price, or even deny bond outright.
While the seriousness of the charge will also likely raise your bond (if not have it denied completely, i.e. for capital murder) the judge will still make you pay bail for smaller crimes if they think you're likely to not show up for your arraignment. So yeah, drug possession will demand a high (for you) bond if you have a reputation of being an irresponsible dickwad, and yes, you're more likely to be poor if you're an irresponsible dickwad.
What they fail to mention is that payday loans have a lower default rate than mortgages.
That is technically correct (which is the best kind of correct), but it's based on the kind of creative accounting that would make Hollywood blush.
Payday lenders make sure they are paid first whether the borrower has the money or not, so in many cases what would be a default is turned into an overdraft fee instead. The penalty for defaulting is still paid, it's just not recorded against the loan. Moreover, four out of five payday loans are rolled over. If you roll over a loan four times before defaulting, that would be recorded as a 20% default rate even though it's really the same debt.
For comparison, 46% of first-time mortgage holders don't default during the first two years. Payday loan borrowers do.
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Falsehoods, top to bottom.
Holder "stopped" a program that allowed the Federal Government to request civil forfeiture. However, as long as the state/local police requested that the Federal Government bring the charges, everything was fine. Notice that civil forfeiture rates didn't drop during Holder's "stoppage".
He told US attorneys not to overcharge crimes - against black drug dealers only. Non-drug crimes? Hispanics? Throw the book at 'em!
Fast and Furious was NOT started under Bush. This is a constant lie told by his defenders, but it simply is not true. The Bush Administration tried a program called 'Wide Receiver'. In that program, the ATF sold disabled guns with tracking devices to criminals, and cooperated with the Mexican police to track the guns into Mexico to launch raids targeting a specific drug kingpin. Unfortunately, even with planes following the criminals, the criminals kept getting away. So the program was cancelled, with a mere 400 guns sold over two years.
Holder's Fast and Furious did not disable the guns, did not attempt to track them, did not follow the criminals, did not coordinate with Mexican law enforcement, and did not have a target. Instead, from the investigation performed after the ATF's illegal guns were used to kill a US Border Patrol agent, we discovered that Holder wanted to use the program to drum up support for gun control laws in the United States.
Holder is lying racist scum that had no problem giving violent drug cartels working weapons, so that they would murder people with them, so he could use the propaganda to violate US citizen's rights. Beyond the wiretapping journalists and all that, I mean.
ATF agents playing Keystone Kops and entrapping mentally-disabled people. And arresting people with rock-solid alibis (like being in federal prison at the time of their supposed offense). The IG issued a pretty scathing report: https://oig.justice.gov/report...
The report concluded that all the ATF’s storefront operations were characterized by “poor management, insufficient training and guidance to agents in the field, and a lax organizational culture that failed to place sufficient emphasis on risk management in these inherently sensitive operations.”
Agents lost track of a fully automatic assault rifle and lost $35,000 worth of store “merchandise” in a burglary. The ATF paid such high prices for guns that potential victims of the sting legally bought guns from gun stores and sold them to friendly Fearless Distributing. One entrepreneur stole three ATF guns from the store. The next day he returned and sold one of them back. One of the men agents charged with selling them drugs had an airtight alibi. He was already in prison. ATF agents said Jones sold them six grams of marijuana on March 7. Problem was, Jones reported to a federal prison in Pennsylvania to start a sentence on March 1, according to Chris Burke, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons - on an ATF case. "He was definitely in our custody," Burke said. "He never left."
A, Prison is like Jail, but they are not the same. Generally, Prison is where you go after conviction. Jail is where you are, sometimes, while waiting for the courts to process you thru their system to determine guilt or innocence.
B, Bail is ensuring that people stay engaged with the court system, should the court decide that the defendant could be allowed out of jail until the verdict is determined for their case. Unfortunately, money is just such a universal incentive, so it is used. Bail is set as a penal amount. The bail bonds entity collects a fee ( usually regulated by the department of insurance in the state of the court ) for the service of agreeing to make certain that the defendant will respect the court's requirements. There is a surprising amount of work involved. And if the defendant skips, the court comes after the bondsman for the full penal amount.
C, Yes, you are in prison if you have a conviction, bail does not apply here.
D, It would be the court system that determines if you are too dangerous or too large a flight risk. They determine if bail will be allowed, and if it is, what the amount will be.
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