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Milwaukee County's new pretrial release system takes hit

2012-02-04T01:50:17Z

DA had rushed to demand bail for homicide suspect already freed

It took only 10 days for Milwaukee County's new pretrial release system for criminal defendants to draw a little unwanted attention.

Derrick Byrd, 21, charged last week with felony murder in an October fatal robbery, was released without posting a cash bail. It wasn't a mistake; Court Commissioner Kevin Costello was following the recommendation of Justice 2000, the agency contracted to assess tens of thousands of people brought into the county's jail.

It's all part of "evidence-based decision making" meant to bring more effective management of law enforcement and justice system resources. Justice 2000 began using the new protocol and assessment tool Jan. 17 after years of research and development.

But missing among the many factors considered in assessing risk and recommending bail or conditions of pretrial release is "public reaction." In Byrd's case, prosecutors had asked for $150,000 cash bail. They immediately appealed Costello's ruling to Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Borowski, who set a $50,000 bail hours after Byrd left jail.

"There will always be some outside factors," said Chief Judge Jeffrey Kremers, noting that both Costello and Borowski had followed the program.

"No victim is ever going to accept an evidence-based decision that conflicts with their emotion-based decision" about bail, Kremers said. "That's valid, but as a system we can't make decisions totally emotion-based, though it always plays some role."

The pretrial assessment tries to measure two main risks: whether the defendant will return for the next court hearing and will he or she commit another crime while awaiting trial. The system gathered data from two years' worth of pretrial releases to come up with a better profile of who presents higher and lower risks.

Now, the Justice 2000 staff compiles the type of crime charged, criminal background, and whether the person has failed to appear or been arrested while on bail or supervision in the past. Then they interview the arrestee to gather information about living arrangements, employment or school, alcohol, drug or mental health issues, and other risk factors. Lastly, they try to confirm the interview data with other sources.

After the information is entered and applied against one of six offense categories, the "praxis" produces a recommendation that court commissioners and lawyers can see at the initial appearance, when release conditions are set.

"We're neutral, just supplying information and applying the tool," said Ed Gordon, pretrial services program director for Justice 2000.

The recommendation, the actuarial-science half of the equation, is just a starting point, Kremers said. To that is added the professional judgment of the commissioner or judge, and a bail decision results.

"Studies around the country show that's the best way," he said.

The old approach of relying entirely on experience and local custom often leads to institutional biases that leave disproportionately more poor and minority defendants awaiting trial in jail, Kremers said.

After about 200 cases, he said, the recommended release was overridden fewer than a dozen times, and about equally in both directions, he said. And as more cases produce more data, the process will continually be tweaked, he said.

In Charlotte, N.C., effective pretrial screening has dramatically cut jail space needs, he said, so much that officials there tore up plans for a new jail and closed a jail annex, all without a spike in crime.

Tailoring needs

Traditionally, a lot of the pretrial services and conditions of release were applied automatically to anyone, whether they really needed them or not, like drug screening or a certain level of supervision, which not only cost more on the front end, but also often led to more unnecessary violations that left the defendant with more or bigger problems.

With the new approach, Kremers said, the services, supervision and confinement are more closely tailored to where they're needed, and away from those - sometimes jailed for months on bails as low as $1,000 or less - who don't need the controls.

But examples like Byrd make the system a hard sell with some in law enforcement.

"There's a use for pretrial screening, but obviously this tool needs to be recalibrated, maybe by me," said Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke, who said the program is being financed with money taken from his jail booking and intake budget.

Clarke called "evidence-based decision making" a phrase liberals hope will resonate when paired with claims of cost savings for law enforcement. He fears that those implementing the program are just too lenient and inclined toward letting people out of jail instead of toward public safety.

He doubts the system will get tweaked much, and thinks only the publicity about the Bryd case prevented another accused killer from being released without bail a couple of days later.

Chasity Lewis, 18, was charged last week with reckless homicide in the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy she told police was among a group of boys who tried to rob her as she sold marijuana. She, too, scored a recommendation of release on a personal recognizance bond. But at her initial appearance Saturday, Costello instead ordered a $20,000 cash bail.

Lewis' attorney, Bridget Boyle, said she assumed her client would get a good recommendation for release because she's in school, has a stable home and has no prior record. But she also warned Lewis' family that Costello likely wouldn't allow that after getting overruled in the Byrd case.

Costello declined to discuss the cases this week, but the outcome in the Byrd case suggests the matrix may in fact be a pretty accurate tool.

Byrd was released on a personal recognizance bond, meaning he agreed to return to court or pay $2,500. After his bond was changed to a $50,000 cash bail, Byrd turned himself in after getting a call about the change from Justice 2000 staff. He remains jailed in lieu of $30,000 cash bail that Borowski set after a full hearing on Friday.

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Bail Works in America

2012-02-04T01:44:50Z

“For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

There is a dangerous movement in the criminal justice community, one that would seek to quantify and simplify the potential behavior of criminal defendants into a nice tidy grid.

The idea, known among academics as Universal Risk Assessment, goes something like this: based on a number of select variables, we can assign a value and create a scoring system for all criminal defendants. Government employees then use that scorecard to decide whether or not a defendant is a risk to the community.

For every complex problem…

The scorecard, which would presumably be created by these same academics, might contain something like, “six to nine universal elements…with prescribed decision or cut points for the decision maker.”*

...there is an answer that is clear, simple…

This idea, which apparently is catching on in parts of our nation, would substitute experience, judgment, education, training, and good old fashioned common sense with a one-size-fits-all, take-a-number approach to assessing criminal defendants.

How dangerous is this idea?

Even the national organization pushing this ill-conceived concept admits, in a study released just last year, that not only is the high-cost concept of an “uncomplicated template” flawed but that, “Most predictions of crime are different in different places for different reasons.”

SERIOUSLY?

It took a national study to conclude that crime and behavior is a complicated matter? How much of our hard-earned tax dollars were spent on this study?

We believe there is no easy solution to the complicated problem of assessing a defendant’s likelihood of flight after an arrest. That is why we support the concept of private surety bail. Bail agents are highly trained, experienced, attuned to the local culture, and highly motivated to get it right.

Why?

Because when a bail agent gets it wrong, he or she will be held personally and financially accountable to both the community and the courts. That is why bail agents are conservative in their assessments and exceedingly thorough in their evaluations.

Let’s be honest, even the most well-intended government assessor, using an “uncomplicated template” to assess a defendant, will never have any real skin in the game and will never be held personally or financially accountable if a dangerous criminal flees his or her jurisdiction.

The concept of distilling down human behavior to a few simple variables and applying it uniformly across our nation is not just dangerous, it is just plain – to quote Mencken – “wrong.”

Just another reason that BAIL WORKS for America.

*State of the Science of Pretrial Risk Assessment. Bureau of Justice Assistance. U.S. Department of Justice. March 2011

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RENEWING THE PROMISE OF PRETRIAL JUSTICE FOR ALL

2012-02-04T01:39:34Z

Almost 50 years ago, then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy convened the first national meeting on bail and pretrial release reform. That meeting led to federal, state and local legislation that changed the way in which pretrial justice was delivered in this country.

Yet the challenges of pretrial justice remain unresolved today. Currently 500,000 people each day - two out of three of those in our local jails - are charged with nonviolent offenses but can't afford bail. The cost to taxpayers is $9 billon each year.

On May 31 and June 1, the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, with the support of the nonprofit Pretrial Justice Institute, convened leaders from significant criminal justice stakeholder organizations and the pretrial community to update the important conversations of the 1964 National Conference on Bail and Criminal Justice.

Speakers included Attorney General Eric Holder and incoming American Bar Association President William T. (Bill) Robinson.

Conference participants examined how far the country has come and how far we have to go to achieve safe and fair pretrial release and diversion practices in our communities. The symposium addressed the challenges and opportunities for forging effective alliances, building and strengthening innovative partnerships, and otherwise collaborating in ways associated with front-end decision-making in criminal case processing. In addition to helping shape new initiatives on pretrial justice, it is hoped that attendees will implement the broad-based recommendations for improvements in the administration of pretrial justice in order to maximize fairness, improve public safety, and contain costs to the system. These recommendations are forthcoming in a Symposium Report, Fall 2011.

http://vimeo.com/28740632
Video

Sergeant to the stars calls it quits

2011-12-03T01:57:09Z

November 30, 2011

Sgt. Steve Wheatcroft, escorting Lindsay Lohan into court last year, is no mystery man to those in the know. Photo/AP

The photo captions dub him the “unidentified man,” whether he’s escorting Lindsay Lohan through a blizzard of golden confetti or guiding Mel Gibson through a gauntlet of paparazzi.

But everybody who’s anybody in Los Angeles County courthouse and government circles knows that the tall, broad-shouldered figure in those pictures is Steve Wheatcroft.

The veteran county sheriff’s sergeant has long been an unsung but essential player on the front lines of L.A.’s celebrity-media circus, bringing decorum and safety to the courtroom comings and goings of America’s most photographed.

He’s been responsible for the security of judges like Lance Ito, who presided over O.J. Simpson’s murder trial. He’s made sure that defendants like Lohan, Gibson, Phil Spector and Dr. Conrad Murray made it through media scrums and into courtrooms with a minimum of chaos. And whenever a threat is made against a Los Angeles County judge or member of the Board of

Sgt. Wheatcroft, left, with Judge Lance Ito.

Supervisors, Wheatcroft and his team have jumped into action.

But now, after more than two decades of rubbing shoulders with L.A.’s famous and infamous, Wheatcroft is ready for a little family time.

“As they always say at the Super Bowl, I’m going to Disneyland,” said Wheatcroft, 54, who will retire in the next few weeks after more than 32 years on the job.

Instead of heading up the sheriff’s Security Operations Unit—which assesses threats on public officials, helps manage high-profile trial logistics and provides protection to supervisors and judges—he’ll be hanging with his eight (soon to be nine) grandchildren and cruising around in his black ’59 Corvette.

Leaving the job is kind of like leaving the family business for Wheatcroft, whose brother and son also work for the sheriff’s department.

More than anything, he said, he’ll miss the camaraderie of the eight-member unit that he joined back when it was just a two-man operation run out of the county marshal’s office. When the marshal’s office merged with the Sheriff’s Department in 1994, Wheatcroft’s unit took over protective services for the supervisors as well as the judges. As part of the job, he has served as sergeant-at-arms for the Board of Supervisors’ meetings and helped with logistics for visiting dignitaries ranging from Muhammad Ali to Kirk Douglas.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, the supervisors gave Wheatcroft a big send-off.

With Mel Gibson...

“All I can say is this is the sweetest cop you will ever meet,” said Supervisor Gloria Molina. “But that doesn’t take away the kind of commanding presence that he has had here at the board.”

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky saluted his professionalism and ability to “defuse situations that could have gone the other way,” including threats made against the supervisor or his staff. “You put me and my family at ease during those moments,” Yaroslavsky told Wheatcroft.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich thanked Wheatcroft and also singled out his work in the courts. Ticking off a long list of celebrity defendants the sergeant has escorted, he noted: “You could see him in all the movie magazines.”

Which is true, actually, but doesn’t seem to have gone to his head.

Over the years, the “unidentified man” in all those photos has had the chance to observe a lot of famous people under difficult circumstances.

Lohan, Wheatcroft said, is “just kind of a confused girl” who told him she “likes to party.”

And with Phil Spector...

Nicest celeb? That would be Rod Stewart, whom Wheatcroft accompanied during a week-long civil proceeding at the courthouse. The British rocker was, in Wheatcroft’s words, “a humble, appreciative person.”

O.J. Simpson trial-watchers may remember the time the jury, lawyers and judge in the so-called “trial of the century” took a field trip to Simpson’s Rockingham Avenue estate. Wheatcroft arranged it. He did the same with an excursion to Vitello’s restaurant during the Robert Blake case.

And—as if Los Angeles County didn’t have enough of its own well-known defendants—Wheatcroft has been called in to advise officials elsewhere in the U.S.and Canada on how to handle high-profile proceedings. He’s written on the subject in Officer magazine.

By his side throughout has been his high-school sweetheart and now-wife, Wanda. After the board send-off Tuesday, she said her husband had often shared tales from his star-studded work over the years.

“But only in an entertaining way,” she said, “never in a complaining way.”

Posted 11/30/11

Criminal Defense Attorney Arrested for Smuggling Narcotics into L.A. Courthouse, Drugs destined for Los Angeles County jails

2011-10-25T21:39:37Z

October 22, 2011

Intelligence was gathered by gang investigators with Operation Safe Streets, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, alleging that Criminal Defense Attorney Kenneth Markman was delivering narcotics to his clients who are confined in the Los Angeles County jail system.

On Friday, October 21, at 10am, Defense Attorney Markman arranged an attorney-client interview on the 11th Floor of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center (Criminal Courts Building), 210 West Temple Street in Downtown Los Angeles. Attorney-Client interviews are confidential communications between lawyers and their clients.

While Mr. Markman was waiting alone in the attorney room and prior to meeting with his client, a Sheriff’s Narcotics K-9 unit was brought into the room and it immediately "alerted" on Markman’s legal briefcase and person (narcotics K-9’s are trained to alert their deputy handlers when the presence of narcotics is detected).

Suspect Markman was questioned by sheriff’s gang investigators with respect to possessing narcotics. He removed a package from his interior suit jacket pocket and the K-9 Unit immediately alerted on the package, which was a tightly wrapped wad of electrical tape. Deputies removed the tape and discovered the package contained a total of twenty-six balloons containing tar Heroin and Methamphetamine. It also contained a quantity of marijuana, and three mini-hypodermic syringes.

A 47-year old resident of Los Angeles, Suspect Kenneth Markman was arrested, transported and booked at the Inmate Reception Center on several narcotics related offenses. He being held in lieu of $145,000.00 bail. The estimated value of the narcotics is $30,000.00. Charges include: Conspiracy to Distribute Narcotics; Transportation of Methamphetamine and Heroin; Transportation of Marijuana; Transportation of Narcotics into a Custody Facility; Participation with Criminal Street Gang Members in Felonious Conduct; and Conspiracy to Distribute Narcotics.

Narcotics such as these, and the abuse of these narcotics, can lead to violent confrontations with law enforcement personnel, especially in a more confined environment such as a jail setting. Use of these controlled substances by inmates in a custody facility can also lead to assaults against other inmates due to the unpredictable nature of people who are under the influence of these drugs.

Suspect Markman was meeting with his client, who is a violent gang member appearing in court Friday to be sentenced on a felony case. Information about the gang member is not being made available at this time.

Partner to prevent or report crime by contacting your local Sheriff’s station. Or if you wish to remain Anonymous, call “LA Crime Stoppers” by dialing 800-222-TIPS (8477), texting the letters TIPLA plus your tip to CRIMES (274637), or using the website http://lacrimestoppers.org

Lieutenant Erik Ruble
Detective Robert Gillis
Operation Safe Streets
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
http://www.lasd.org

So far in 2011, 47 arrests for narcotics violations were made in Los Angeles County courthouses. Meanwhile in 2011, two guns and 34,266 knives were confiscated.

In 2010, 73 narcotics arrests were made, and two guns and 51,806 knives were confiscated from persons entering Los Angeles County court facilities.

The Court Services Division of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has the responsibility for providing security for the 42 courthouses of the Los Angeles Superior Court system, which is the nation’s largest. It is the mission of Sheriff’s Court Services Division personnel to provide a safe environment, as well as effective and efficient levels of security to Judges, Superior Court employees, court patrons, court prisoners, and Sheriff’s Department employees assigned to work at the courthouses within Los Angeles County. Sheriff’s Deputies, armed Sheriff’s Security Officers, Sheriff’s Security Assistants and personnel from a privately contracted security company monitor all court patrons upon entrance to the courthouses. Sheriff’s supervision helps ensure that correct monitoring procedures are adhered to, in addition to handling those situations which are beyond the scope of the Security Officers and Security Assistants.

Captain Mike Parker
Sheriff’s Headquarters Bureau – Newsroom
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
(323) 267-4800
http://www.lasd.org
SHBNewsroom@lasd.org
www.Nixle.com
http://nixle.com/lasd----hq-newsroom-shb-los-angeles-county-sheriff/
Twitter @LASD_News http://twitter.com/#!/LASD_News
http://www.facebook.com/LosAngelesCountySheriffsDepartment

Inland Empire Bail Agents

2011-09-27T00:22:17Z

Thanks to those that attended the meeting last month we had a big turnout. We will begin re-organization of the local association soon. Below is some important information on how AB109 has and will directly impact you business in San Bernardino County.

On September 20, 2011 the San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford hosted a forum to give information on, "The Effects of Realignment On Our County", in Rancho Cucamonga. Gloria Mitchell and I attended a the last minute.

There were mostly law enforcement officers present. The panel had Sheriff Rod Hoop, District Attorney Mike Ramos, Terri Mc Donald (Director Adult Institutions, CDCR), Chief Probation Micelle Scray, and Allan Rawland (Dir. of Behavior Heath for S.B.County).

The county's Realignment Plan states "To house new classification of offenders in local jail without disruption to jail operations or release of those normally held in the jail population, local custody and supervision efforts must include alternative custody options for the county jails......."

The Sheriff said this will be accomplished by citing non-violent offenders in the street. This will be offenses with bail under $400,000.00. Specific charges that would be excluded were not mentioned. He also indicated that this process has already begun. The county will have 1300 additional beds in 2013 by adding a new Adelanto jail. The county will also be adding a Re-Entry facility in Apple Valley with 500 beds. This is being done to house the 300 inmate a month that would have normally gone to the State Department of Corrections but will now stay in the county.

There will be another forum in about six to update the community on the process. At that time we should be ready go in mass to communicate to the panel and community how street booking/citing effect Public Safety and increases Failure to Appear rates in court.

If anyone has direct contact with the Presiding Judge or The D.A. or Supervising D.A. for San Bernardino County we should talk.

Owner of Modesto bail bonds business, 2 others arrested

2011-09-16T18:36:24Z

MODESTO -- Stanislaus County sheriff's officials on Wednesday arrested three people, including the owner of a Modesto bail bonds business, on charges of grand theft and criminal conspiracy.

Aleo John Pontillo, 40, owner of AJ's Bail Bonds in the 1300 block of Yosemite Boulevard, was arrested on suspicion of grand theft, criminal conspiracy and insurance fraud, according to the Sheriff's Department's custody list. His bail was set at $2 million.

Mark David Davis, 49, was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit grand theft and perjury. Janelle Marie Llorens, 27, also was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit grand theft and perjury, and she was charged with insurance fraud.

It's unclear whether Davis or Llorens are employees at the bail bonds business or how they are connected to Pontillo. The business was the focus of a federal investigation in 2008.

Wednesday's arrests were part of an investigation conducted by the state Department of Insurance. Department spokesman Dave Alt-hausen said the department could not release any information Wednesday evening because details were "still coming in from agents in the field."

Althausen said the department is expected to release more information about the arrests and the investigation today.

Pontillo, Davis and Llorens were booked at the Stanislaus County Jail on Wednesday morning. They were taken into custody without incident, said Sgt. Anthony Bejaran, a sheriff's spokesman.

Pontillo, Davis and Llorens were being held at the jail Wednesday evening.

Davis' bail was set at $500,000, and Llorens' bail was set at $1 million. The three defendants were scheduled to appear today in Stanislaus County Superior Court for an arraignment hearing, according to the court's Web site.

On Dec. 23, 2008, FBI agents, along with members of a gang task force, served a federal search warrant at AJ's Bail Bonds, just west of La Loma Avenue in Modesto.

At the time, Pontillo told The Bee that federal agents also searched for paperwork at his home on Albers Road, east of Modesto. Some investigators could be seen at the business, examining papers and searching files.

Nobody was taken into custody during the 2008 search. An FBI spokesman at the time said the search warrant was sealed in federal court, and the FBI would not comment on any aspects of the investigation, including whether there was any possible gang activity or associations with the business.

Members of the Central Valley Gang Impact Task Force assisted federal agents in the 2008 search. The task force is a federally funded, countywide group that has members from local law enforcement agencies and the FBI.

Bee staff writer Rosalio Ahumada can be reached at rahumada@modbee.com or (209) 578-2394.

Get Out of Jail Free: Taxpayer-Funded Grants Place Criminals on the Street Without Posting Bail

2011-09-13T19:47:29Z

By David Muhlhausen, Ph.D.
September 12, 2011

For fiscal year 2012, the House Appropriations Committee recommended $357 million for the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program (H.R. 2596). Byrne JAG grants, administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), can be used by state and local governments for 29 broad criminal justice purposes, including funding pretrial release services.[1]

The original mission of pretrial release services during the 1960s was to assist in the release of the relatively few indigents who truly could not afford to post bail. However, the mission of too many pretrial services agencies has expanded beyond helping indigents to defendants who would normally secure release through private bond agents. These individuals are released on their own recognizance without offering anything of value to ensure that they return on their court dates. This, in turn, will most assuredly result in more criminals failing to appear in court and becoming fugitives from justice.

Philadelphia : A Case Study of Public Policy Disaster

About 40 years ago, Philadelphia assumed exclusive control over the city's bail system by abolishing private bail services and implementing its own pretrial release service. The typical Philadelphia defendant is required to deposit only 10 percent of his total bail assigned by the judge and sign a statement agreeing that he will owe the remaining 90 percent for failure to appear on the court date.[2] According to a recent investigation by The Philadelphia Inquirer:

For decades, Philadelphia court officials have presided over an ineffective bail system that allowed accused criminals to skip court virtually without consequence. Defendants routinely failed to appear in court and just as routinely, failed to pay the forfeited bail that was supposed to come due as a result.[3]

Further, Philadelphia court officials admitted that no one made any effort to collect the money owed the city by those who had skipped their court dates.[4]

What is the result of the city's pretrial release services? Today, fugitive defendants owe the city more than $1 billion for failing to appear for their trials.[5] Further, there are more than 47,000 defendants wanted on bench warrants for failing to appear for trial.[6]

The Private Sector Does it Better (Again)

Private bail bond insurers provide important services to defendants and society at no cost to taxpayers. In exchange for a fee, private bond agents secure the release of defendants from jail while the accused await trail. Compared to other types of pretrial release, research indicates that private bond agents are more effective at ensuring defendants make their court appearances.[7] Individuals who obtain their release through private bond agents are 28 percent less likely to fail to appear before court than when freed on their own recognizance.[8] When defendants fail to appear before the courts and remain at large for more than a year, private bond agents seem to be more effective at catching these fugitives than public law enforcement. Those released through the assistance of private bond agents have a fugitive rate that is 53 percent lower than the fugitive rates of those released on their own recognizance. [9]

Lack of Accountability

While the performance of private bail bonding is well known and documented, we know far less than we should about pretrial release services funded by the Byrne JAG program. This is important because under the Byrne JAG performance monitoring system, pretrial release services do not have to report how they are performing. Performance monitoring through the systematic and recurrent documentation of important features of program performance is crucial to assessing whether programs are operating as intended.[10] When appropriately applied, performance monitoring can provide timely information on program performance to local program administrators and grant-making bureaus.

While most Byrne JAG recipients, including police departments, are required to report annual performance measures to the BJA, pretrial release agencies are not required to report any performance measures. To correct this deficiency, The Citizens Right to Know Act of 2011 (H.R. 1885), sponsored by Representative Ted Poe (R-TX), would require pretrial release agencies receiving federal taxpayer funding to report information regarding:

The number and names of defendants assigned to pretrial services;
The number and names of indigent defendants accepted into pretrial release programs;
The current charges and all past criminal convictions of defendants accepted into pretrial release programs;
The instances of defendants failing to appear at scheduled court appearances; and
All warrants issued or arrests made of defendants accepted into pretrial release programs.

While Congress should not be in the business of funding pretrial release services through the Byrne JAG program, The Citizens Right to Know Act takes appropriate steps for gaining systematic information on the performance of federally funded pretrial release services.

Taxpayers Should Not Pay for Pretrial Release

Government should not provide a public good when the private sector offers identical services with a similar-or as is often the case, greater-level of competence. In this case, Byrne JAG grants are being used to displace the services of private bond agents. Given the nation's dire financial straits, an even better idea would be for Congress to eliminate funding for the Byrne JAG program altogether.

[1] U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, "Byrne Formula Purpose Areas," at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/grant/byrnepurpose.html (September 12, 2011).

[2] Nancy Phillips and Craig R. McCoy, "Private Bail Industry Says It Could Help Philadelphia's Ailing Court System," The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 10, 2010, p. B1.

[3] Nancy Phillips and Craig R. McCoy, "Philadelphia Courts Go After Deadbeats Starting Monday," The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 23, 2011, p. A1.

[4] Phillips and McCoy, "Private Bail Industry Says It Could Help Philadelphia's Ailing Court System."

[5] Ibid., and Phillips and McCoy, "Philadelphia Courts Go After Deadbeats Starting Monday."

[6] Phillips and McCoy, "Private Bail Industry Says It Could Help Philadelphia's Ailing Court System."

[7] Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok, "The Fugitive: Evidence on Public Versus Private Law Enforcement From Bail Jumping," Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. XLVII (April 2004), pp. 93-122.

[8] Ibid., p. 108.

[9] Ibid., p. 110.

[10] Peter H. Rossi, Mark W. Lipsey, and Howard E. Freeman, Evaluation: A Systematic Approach, 7th edition (Thousand Oaks, Cal.: SAGE Publications, 2004).

David B. Muhlhausen, Ph.D., is Research Fellow in Empirical Policy Analysis in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.

We thought you would enjoy reading the article below which was reported on The Heritage Foundation website on September 12, 2011:

Chief Donald Blevins, L.A. County Chief Probation Officer

2011-09-07T23:23:29Z

This week on News Conference, the state of California?s move on a bill that could create a public safety nightmare. We?re talking about Assembly Bill 109, and the early release of inmates. Chief Donald Blevins, of the Los Angeles County Probation Department talks with Robert Kovacik on this week?s edition of News Conference.

Video Link:
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/on-air/as-seen-on/NewConference___Chief_Donald_Blevins__LA_County_Chief_Probation_Officer_Los_Angeles-129158908.html

Search Warrants Served at Four "Prescription Mills."

2011-09-04T07:48:26Z

SEPTEMBER 01, 2011

Recent deaths due to prescription overdoses, and complaints from devastated loved ones and law enforcement agencies, led to a multi-agency investigation and search warrants served Thursday in the San Fernando Valley.

Throughout the western United States, suspects were caught trying to fill bogus Oxycontin prescriptions that had been obtained from four Valley clinics. Others were caught trafficking in large quanities of Oxycontin filled using prescriptions obtained at the four clinics in Reseda, Northridge, and Van Nuys.

Meanwhile, numerous legitimate patients said their identities had been stolen through medical care identity theft. They reported that prescriptions had been filled in their names, then billed to Medicare. The billings were credited against the legitimate Medicare patients medical histories, resulting in records indicating that they were using part of their limited allowance. The clinics were connected to incidents or investigations in nearly every large county in California, as well as Arizona, Nevada, Oregan, Utah and Washington.

The investigation includes allegations of false claims resulting in medicare fraud, and illegal kickbacks to medicare beneficiaries who sold the use of their medicare card to presecription drug dealers. Medicare was also billed for medical services that were never performed. "The majority of the criminal activity involved the prescription drug Oxycontin," said Sgt. Steve Opferman, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "Oxycontin is an opiate and highly addictive prescription pain killer." We take this very seriously. People are dying.

Sgt. Opferman, assigned to the multi-jurisdicational Health Authority Law Enforcement (HALT) Task Force said, "The investigation included undercover investigators who purchased prescription drugs just by presenting false identification at the clinics. No medical examinations were ever performed." Search warrants were conducted Thursday, September 1, at four "prescription mills" (clinics) by the task force, and the clinics were shut down. Two clinics were located on the 7000 block of Reseda Blvd in Reseda, one on the 8600 block of Reseda Blvd. in Northridge, and one on the 8100 block of Van Nuys Blvd. in Van Nuys. Two arrests were made at the Northridge clinic.

One suspect was arrested for possession of 23 vials including over 2,000 pills with a street value of about $40,000.00. A second suspect was arrested with false identification used to fill fraudulent prescriptions. Their names were not released.

The HALT Task Force includes investigators with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Department of Health, California Department of Health Care Services, and U.S. Health and Human Services Department.

Also involved in this major investigation were investigators with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Monterey Park Police Department, California Department of Justice, California Medical Board, California Labor Commission, and Drug Enforcement Administration.

While serving the search warrant, investigators collected computers, financial records and patients records.
Evidence and facts are being reviewed, including possible allegations against multiple doctors, clinic managers, office employees, cappers (recruiters), and drug dealers. The charges could include felony state and federal offenses ranging from drug trafficking to health care fraud and tax fraud. (213) 989-7039 - Health Authority Law Enforcement Task Force

Partner to prevent or report crime by contacting your local sheriff’s station or police department. Or, if you wish to remain anonymous, call “LA Crime Stoppers” by dialing 800-222-TIPS (8477), texting the letters TIPLA plus your tip to CRIMES (274637), or using the website lacrimestoppers.org

face="arial," size="3">***

(Related)

FBI News Release

Laura Eimiller
FBI Press Relations
Los Angeles Field Office
310 996-3343
310 420-6441
http://losangeles.fbi.gov
www.labankrobbers.org

****

More information from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department:

* Prescription drugs (including Oxycontin) worth millions to dealers

*** HALT***
Globally, the Health Authority Law Enforcement Task Force (HALT) deals with different issues in different countries. Organized crime groups from Russia, Armenia, Nigeria and the Philippines are the most common organized crime groups associated with health care fraud. Criminals from Middle Eastern countries are also prevalent in these crime groups. The task force mainly deals with stolen health care funds, smuggled pharmaceuticals, and counterfeit drugs and money. More about HALT:

http://www.lasdhq.org/sites/YIR/2005/visuals/1617.pdf

* Safe Drug Drop-Off Program available at your local Los Angeles County Sheriff's Station 24 hours a day, 7 days a week:

http://file.lacounty.gov/lasd/cms1_152501.pdf

Sheriff could cut $1M more

2011-08-15T22:30:45Z

1 civilian, 5 officers would be laid off in Benton's proposal

2010, JASMINA MEYER/STAFF

Highlands County Sheriff Susan Benton speaks during an interview.

BY GARY PINNELL
Highlands Today
Published: August 12, 2011

SEBRING - Sheriff Susan Benton has offered to slice an additional $1 million from her budget, but she'll have to cut six people to do it.

Benton sent a memo Thursday afternoon to county commissioners, detailing the offer.

"We would be forced to reduce programs and staffing in the following areas," Benton wrote. Here are the specifics of her proposal:

• Eliminate the pretrial release program, $51,275.

• Close employee entrance in courthouse, one deputy, one court support officer, $113,405.

• Reduce the school resource program by two deputies and one sergeant, $120,163.

Five of the layoffs would be uniformed officers; the pretrial release official is a civilian.

The program eliminations and staff reductions would total $706,000.

"To reach the remaining request from the board," Benton would return $300,000 in additional funds for compensating absences.

However, Benton said later, "the board could easily fund $284,000 from their reserves for contingency, from their fund balance, and we wouldn't have to cut these positions."

Commissioner Don Elwell wasn't sure if he wanted the layoffs. He scheduled a meeting today with County Administrator Rick Helms and Budget Manager Tim Mechling to determine what will be necessary.

"We need to know where we are sitting with fund balance," Elwell said. "We could balance our budget with less."

The loss of three school resource officers - one from Lake Placid and two from Sebring - "absolutely concerns me," Elwell said.

The student-to-officer ratio is already very high.

The school resource program may be more valuable than the cuts, he said.

The school resource officers at Sebring High School and Sebring Middle School also teach DARE, an anti-drug program, Benton said.

If one officer has to cover both schools, they won't be able to teach.

Also, a layoff would leave one officer at all four Lake Placid schools, Benton said.

The school board already pays half the officer salaries at the Sebring and Lake Placid campuses, Benton said. Avon Park schools are guarded by the police department.

Given a choice between guarding the schools and the courthouse or solving crimes and patrolling, Benton chose law enforcement duties.

"That's our primary function," she said. "It's unfortunate, but the others are luxuries. Are they needed? Of course. Are they in the best interest of the communities? Of course."

"God bless her," Commissioner Jack Richie said, "but I'm not thrilled with the layoffs, and I think we'll have to look at the whole thing."

He was concerned about losing three school resource officers for another reason - the recent flash-mob incidents in Philadelphia and London, where youths with cell phones and Twitter quickly assembled and caused problems.

"I want to compliment her for really working hard to make things happen correctly," Richie said. "She protects a very large area and we have asked her to improve, and that costs money.

"Now we have to ask how much of that we want to keep, and how much we can afford to keep. It takes manpower and a tremendous amount of money to handle that."

gpinnell@highlandstoday.com, 386-5828

The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor

2011-08-09T20:34:42Z

The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour, not in a faraway country, but by a member of an invisible American workforce: prisoners. At the Union Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Florida, inmates from a nearby lower-security prison manufacture tons of processed beef, chicken and pork for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), a privately held non-profit corporation that operates the state’s forty-one work programs. In addition to processed food, PRIDE’s website reveals an array of products for sale through contracts with private companies, from eyeglasses to office furniture, to be shipped from a distribution center in Florida to businesses across the US. PRIDE boasts that its work programs are “designed to provide vocational training, to improve prison security, to reduce the cost of state government, and to promote the rehabilitation of the state inmates.”

Although a wide variety of goods have long been produced by state and federal prisoners for the US government—license plates are the classic example, with more recent contracts including everything from guided missile parts to the solar panels powering government buildings—prison labor for the private sector was legally barred for years, to avoid unfair competition with private companies. But this has changed thanks to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), its Prison Industries Act, and a little-known federal program known as PIE (the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program). While much has been written about prison labor in the past several years, these forces, which have driven its expansion, remain largely unknown.

Somewhat more familiar is ALEC’s instrumental role in the explosion of the US prison population in the past few decades. ALEC helped pioneer some of the toughest sentencing laws on the books today, like mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, “three strikes” laws, and “truth in sentencing” laws. In 1995 alone, ALEC’s Truth in Sentencing Act was signed into law in twenty-five states. (Then State Rep. Scott Walker was an ALEC member when he sponsored Wisconsin's truth-in-sentencing laws and, according to PR Watch, used its statistics to make the case for the law.) More recently, ALEC has proposed innovative “solutions” to the overcrowding it helped create, such as privatizing the parole process through “the proven success of the private bail bond industry,” as it recommended in 2007. (The American Bail Coalition is an executive member of ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task Force.) ALEC has also worked to pass state laws to create private for-profit prisons, a boon to two of its major corporate sponsors: Corrections Corporation of America and Geo Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections), the largest private prison firms in the country. An In These Times investigation last summer revealed that ALEC arranged secret meetings between Arizona’s state legislators and CCA to draft what became SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law, to keep CCA prisons flush with immigrant detainees. ALEC has proven expertly capable of devising endless ways to help private corporations benefit from the country’s massive prison population.

That mass incarceration would create a huge captive workforce was anticipated long before the US prison population reached its peak—and at a time when the concept of “rehabilitation” was still considered part of the mission of prisons. First created by Congress in 1979, the PIE program was designed “to encourage states and units of local government to establish employment opportunities for prisoners that approximate private sector work opportunities,” according to PRIDE’s website. The benefits to big corporations were clear—a “readily available workforce” for the private sector and “a cost-effective way to occupy a portion of the ever-growing offender/inmate population” for prison officials—yet from its founding until the mid-1990s, few states participated in the program.

This started to change in 1993, when Texas State Representative and ALEC member Ray Allen crafted the Texas Prison Industries Act, which aimed to expand the PIE program. After it passed in Texas, Allen advocated that it be duplicated across the country. In 1995, ALEC’s Prison Industries Act was born.

This Prison Industries Act as printed in ALEC’s 1995 state legislation sourcebook, “provides for the employment of inmate labor in state correctional institutions and in the private manufacturing of certain products under specific conditions.” These conditions, defined by the PIE program, are supposed to include requirements that “inmates must be paid at the prevailing wage rate” and that the “any room and board deductions…are reasonable and are used to defray the costs of inmate incarceration.” (Some states charge prisoners for room and board, ostensibly to offset the cost of prisons for taxpayers. In Florida, for example, prisoners are paid minimum wage for PIE-certified labor, but 40 percent is taken out of their accounts for this purpose.)

The Prison Industries Act sought to change this, inventing the “private sector prison industry expansion account,” to absorb such deductions, and stipulating that the money should be used to, among other things: “construct work facilities, recruit corporations to participate as private sector industries programs, and pay costs of the authority and department in implementing [these programs].” Thus, money that was taken from inmate wages to offset the costs of incarceration would increasingly go to expanding prison industries. In 2000, Florida passed a law that mirrored the Prison Industries Act and created the Prison Industries Trust Fund, its own version of the private sector prison industry expansion account, deliberately designed to help expand prison labor for private industries.

The Prison Industries Act was also written to exploit a critical PIE loophole that seemed to suggest that its rules did not apply to prisoner-made goods that were not shipped across state lines. It allowed a third-party company to set up a local address in a state that makes prison goods, buy goods from a prison factory, sell those products locally or surreptitiously ship them across state borders. It helped that by 1995 oversight of the PIE program had been effectively squashed, transferred from the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance to the National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA), a private trade organization that happened to be represented by Allen’s lobbying firm, Service House, Inc. In 2003, Allen became the Texas House Chairman of the Corrections Committee and began peddling the Prison Industries Act and other legislation beneficial to CCA and Geo Group, like the Private Correctional Facilities Act. Soon thereafter he became Chairman of ALEC’s Criminal Justice (now Public Safety and Elections) Task Force. He resigned from the state legislature in 2006 while under investigation for his unethical lobbying practices. He was hired soon after as a lobbyist for Geo Group.

Today’s chair of ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task force is state Representative Jerry Madden of Texas, where the Prison Industries Act originated eighteen years ago. According to a 2010 report from NCIA, as of last summer there were "thirty jurisdictions with active [PIE] operations." These included such states as Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and twelve more. Four more states are now looking to get involved as well; Kentucky, Michigan and Pennsylvania have introduced legislation and New Hampshire is in the process of applying for PIE certification. Today these state’s legislation are based upon an updated version of the Prison Industries Act, which ALEC amended in 2004.

Prison labor has already started to undercut the business of corporations that don’t use it. In Florida, PRIDE has become one of the largest printing corporations in the state, its cheap labor having a significant impact upon smaller local printers. This scenario is playing out in states across the country. In addition to Florida's forty-one prison industries, California alone has sixty. Another 100 or so are scattered throughout other states. What's more, several states are looking to replace public sector workers with prison labor. In Wisconsin Governor Walker’s recent assault on collective bargaining opened the door to the use of prisoners in public sector jobs in Racine, where inmates are now doing landscaping, painting, and other maintenance work. According to the Capitol Times, “inmates are not paid for their work, but receive time off their sentences.” The same is occurring in Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida and Georgia, all states with GOP Assembly majorities and Republican governors. Much of ALEC’s proposed labor legislation, implemented state by state is allowing replacement of public workers with prisoners.

“It’s bad enough that our companies have to compete with exploited and forced labor in China,” says Scott Paul Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a coalition of business and unions. “They shouldn’t have to compete against prison labor here at home. The goal should be for other nations to aspire to the quality of life that Americans enjoy, not to discard our efforts through a downward competitive spiral.”

Alex Friedmann, associate editor of Prison Legal News, says prison labor is part of a “confluence of similar interests” among politicians and corporations, long referred to as the “prison industrial complex.” As decades of model legislation reveals, ALEC has been at the center of this confluence. “This has been ongoing for decades, with prison privatization contributing to the escalation of incarceration rates in the US,” Friedmann says. Just as mass incarceration has burdened American taxpayers in major prison states, so is the use of inmate labor contributing to lost jobs, unemployment and decreased wages among workers—while corporate profits soar.

Man arrested for series of San Gabriel Valley armed robberies, 9 counts filed by D.A.

2011-06-27T23:09:15Z

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department detectives assigned to the Major Crimes Bureau presented evidence today at the El Monte Superior Courthouse against an El Monte man for a series of armed robberies which occurred over the past several weeks in the San Gabriel Valley. Subsequently, the El Monte branch of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office filed nine counts of Armed Robbery against 32-year old Anselmo Rincon.

Sheriff's Department detectives worked with officers from the Arcadia, Covina and El Monte Police Departments to identify and arrest Rincon for the robberies.

Rincon was arrested by Sheriff's personnel at about 2:30PM on June 16, 2011, at a gas station in the 3200 block of Santa Anita Avenue, El Monte, for Robbery and is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail. A preliminary hearing will be held at a future date at the Pomona Superior Courthouse.

Rincon used a replica firearm to commit the robberies, which were conducted primarily at Subway restaurants and dry cleaning stores. The replica firearm Rincon used in the robberies was found in the car he used at the time of his arrest.

"This collaborative effort to arrest Rincon has taken a dangerous criminal off the streets of our communities," said Sheriff's Lieutenant Chris Brackpool. "His robberies were becoming more frequent in recent days and the danger he presented was escalating."

Sergeant Michael Thomas
Deputy Lillian Peck

Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

(323) 267-4800

Asian gang members arrested in San Gabriel Valley in connection w/ trafficking of Ecstasy pills

2011-06-27T23:06:45Z

On June 8, 2011, at about 5:00 PM, deputies assigned to the Sheriff’s Department Asian Gang Team of Operation Safe Streets Bureau stopped a vehicle for minor traffic violations in the “Valu Mart” parking lot near the corner of Rosemead Boulevard and Longden Avenue in Temple City.

The driver and sole occupant of the vehicle, Jimmy Chau (22) of San Gabriel, appeared very nervous and displayed some unusual behaviors prompted the deputies to investigate further. A check of Chau’s vehicle resulted in the discovery of about two thousand pills of Ecstasy. Chau was arrested for suspicion of narcotics trafficking.

Further investigation by investigators lead them to a house located in the 9000 block of Longden Avenue, Temple City. Investigators prepared a search warrant, which was approved by a magistrate for that residence and the home of Chau, located in the 5500 block of Walnut Grove in the city of San Gabriel.

As a result of the search, an additional three thousand pills of Ecstasy were seized from the Longden Avenue location. Also seized from that location were one handgun, a shotgun, a bullet proof vest, small amount of Methamphetamine, several assault rifle parts, live bullets, gang indicia, and several thousand dollars in cash.

Andy Lin (30) of Temple City was arrested for suspicion of narcotics trafficking and weapons charges from the Longden Avenue location.

At the Walnut Grove location, over a thousand dollars in cash were seized but no other narcotics were located. Chau, a Cantonese/Vietnamese-American, was booked at Temple Sheriff’s Station and is being held under a $30,000 bail.

Lin, a Taiwanese-American, was also booked at Temple Sheriff’s Station and is being held under a $100,000 bail.

Both Chau and Lin are members of the “Wah Ching” Asian street gang.

Taxpayer-Funded Program Puts Criminals on America’s Streets

2011-06-21T22:37:34Z

At a time when the White House and Congress debate solutions for the country’s mounting debt, the Department of Justice is preparing to dole out millions for a taxpayer-subsidized program that puts violent criminals, like Chandra Levy’s killer, on the streets of American cities.

States and localities have until mid-July to seek federal funding as part of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program. The Department of Justice is expected to award an estimated $3.5 million this year.

The program was created in the 1960s to assist state and local governments with a variety of criminal justice activities, including pretrial release for nonviolent criminals. But like many other troubled government programs, it began to evolve over time and today gives even violent criminals a get-out-jail-free card.

The grants provided by the Department of Justice are routinely used by the more than 300 pretrial release programs across the country. They often require an alleged criminal to put up little or no money before securing release from jail before trial.

The programs also compete with private bail bond agencies, which, research has shown, are more effective than pretrial release programs. A study by Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok, “The Fugitive: Evidence on Public Versus Private Law Enforcement From Bail Jumping,” shows that individuals who post bail with a private-sector agency are 28 percent less likely to fail to appear before court.

Heritage’s David Muhlhausen documented the problems with the program during the stimulus debate when liberals wanted to boost spending on it.

“We have repeat, violent and hardened criminals that we the taxpayers are turning out on the street — and in an alarming number of cases they go on to commit additional crimes,” said Dennis Bartlett, director of the American Bail Coalition. “In fact, many crimes taking place in our communities today are committed by people that we the taxpayers have released from jail through these programs. Among them is Ingmar Gandique, who after being released through taxpayer funded pretrial release, killed Capitol Hill intern Chandra Levy in 2001.“

Tomorrow at The Bloggers Briefing, a weekly meeting held at Heritage, we’ll talk about the public policy implications of the program. You can tune in at noon Tuesday on Ustream.tv or listen live at BlogTalkRadio.

Meanwhile, Reps. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Dan Boren (D-OK), have introduced legislation to provide accountability for how taxpayer money is being spent. Their bill would require any pretrial release program receiving federal funding to investigate and collect more information on defendants before they are released from jail.

www.jacksbailbonds.com

We need bail bonds and public programs

2011-06-17T22:27:56Z

Daily Press, June 12, 2011

For-profit bail bonds: Pretrial justice," she offers her strong opposition to private bail and makes several factual assertions which are simply false. While she is certainly entitled to her own opinion, she should not be entitled to her own set of facts.

I would like to set the record straight.

In her column she wrongly states that "in Florida this year" the bail industry tried to "decimate funding for pretrial services."

This is simply not true. As someone who was actively supportive of the change in Florida, not a single word of the measure would have cut funding for pretrial services. In fact, it simply limited who was eligible for government-funded pretrial services for the first 48 hours after an arrest (and only in non-rural counties).

As these programs were originally designed to only serve indigent defendants who could not otherwise afford their own bail, this bill largely said that these taxpayer-funded programs would not be eligible to those defendants who can afford to pay their own way out via a bail bond. The move would have, by the way, saved (not cost) taxpayers millions of dollars.

Her concern is that if the bill passed, pretrial services would only be available to poor defendants. While that is partially true, that worry is akin to being concerned about the government offering welfare, food stamps, or other types of government assistance to those who are not poor. The fact is that these assistance programs -like government funded pretrial release - were designed to serve the poor and they should not be expanded to serve everyone else, as taxpayers simply cannot afford it.

Ms. Dietrich also goes on to perpetuate another unsubstantiated myth: that these pretrial services somehow reduce jail populations. The facts simply do not support this assertion.

By way of specific example, and because she mentioned Florida, our state issued a report (OPPAGA: Jail Population and Occupancy Rates) showing that there was no difference in jail population rates between those counties that had such programs and those that do not. Further, when one county in particular completely shut down its pretrial release program altogether, the closure had no impact on the county's jail population. Supporters of taxpayer funded pretrial services have not brought forth one independent study to refute these numbers.

This begs the question. If someone cannot afford bail and pretrial services doesn't let them out, nor does a judge, how is that in any way the fault of the private bail industry? Shouldn't the blame go to those programs that are supposed to focus on helping the poor, but instead have sought to expand into other areas?

What too many people fail to also understand is that bail agents most often work directly with the families and friends of poor defendants to help them post bail. In almost every circumstance, if someone is unable to afford bail it is usually for a reason not related to an inability to pay but due to a lack of connectedness in a community.

The fact is that after 47 years of growth and experimentation, it is almost uncontestable that government funded pretrial services programs are not working. And for sure, at a time of budget shortfalls, we should not be expanding these costly programs into also serving defendants who are not poor.

Government financed pretrial release should focus its efforts on serving those who are indigent. Focusing on the problems of poverty (and without the spurious bail bashing) will go a long way to solving the very real issues of pretrial justice. Until then, I would kindly ask Ms. Dietrich to continue sharing her opinion on the subject, but would also ask her to please be more careful with her facts.

http://www.JacksBailBonds.com

Nevada Bail Agent Frist Hand Knowledge and Interaction With Marshall Doing Business...

2011-06-17T22:22:43Z

If someone would have told me this was happening I would not have believed
it until I witnessed it for myself. I bailed Augustin Leonardo Gonzalez
from the North Las Vegas Detention Center on a NLV Municipal case at 1200
Noon. He had a hold for the City of Las Vegas, and I was waiting for him to
get transported so that I could also do that bail.

At 6:00 PM the family gets a call in my office on their cell phone from a
City of Las Vegas Marshall later identified as Officer Bowler P#422 telling
the family that if they bring him $400 right now to the corner of Civic
Center and Lake Mead at the Taco Bell that he will let the Def.
Augustin Leonardo Gonzalez go. I'm in the office working and I over hear
all this going on. I told the family member that I would go with them to
the corner and meet with this officer.

I show up to the corner of Civic Center and Lake Mead at the Taco Bell and I
see a City of Las Vegas Marshall unit backed into a spot. I parked my
vehicle and walk up to the police vehicle, I can see that the officer was on
his cell phone. He rolls down his window while still on the phone and
asks me "how can I help you?". I introduce myself to the officer and
explain that I own a Bail Bonds which bailed out Def. Augustin Leonardo
Gonzalez from the North Las Vegas Detention Center. I can see that there
was a prisoner in the back seat of the police vehicle and I also told the
officer that the person in the back seat is my defendant and I have been
waiting for him to be transported to Las Vegas City Jail so that I can
proceed to bail him out. I asked the officer "did you just
extort money from the family?". We're not in Mexico here we are in Las
Vegas and did I hear correctly that you need a payment of $400 in order to
release Def. Augustin Leonardo Gonzalez? The officer later identified to me
at Officer Bowler P#422 said "Yes, that is correct, as of July 1, 2010 the
Las Vegas City Marshall's office and Metro Police are accepting payments out
in the field", we then give the people a new court date 30 days from today's
date to have their matter resolved.

I then witnessed the employer of the defendant pull out a credit card and
hand it to Officer Bowler P#422 who then went into his police vehicle and
proceeded to make a phone call. I waited and a few minutes later Officer
Bowler P#422 came up to the employer and handed him a small blue card with a
new court date of 09-16-10 and explained that Defendant Augustin Leonardo
Gonzalez had until that date to have his cases resolved or he would be in
warrant again.

I explained to the family that I still believed that doing a bail out in the
street by a law enforcement officer should be considered extortion in my
eyes. They just told me that since Defendant Augustin Leonardo Gonzalez was
going to be released right now, that's all they wanted.

*** My opinion***
The officer conducted this bail under color of authority which is a crime.

The officer was in violation of NRS 697.090 License required. A person in
this state shall not act in the capacity of a bail agent, or perform any of
the functions, duties, or powers prescribed for a bail agent, unless that
person is qualified and licensed. The Commissioner may impose an
administrative fine of not more that $1,000 for each act or violation

The officer was in violation of NRS 697.340(2) The following persons may not
be bail agents, bail enforcement agents or bail solicitors and shall not,
directly or indirectly, receive any benefits from the execution of any bail:
a. Jailers
b. Police Officers
c. Justices of the peace
d. Municipal judges
e. Sheriffs, deputy sheriffs and constables
f. Any person having the power to arrest or having anything to do with
the
control of federal, state, county or municipal prisoners

As a bail bond owner I was never notified by Las Vegas Municipal Court that
this was going to be enacted as of July 1, 2010

http://www.JacksBailBonds.com

Bail bonds provide an option

2011-06-17T22:15:47Z

As the owner of a nationwide provider of bail bonds through a family-owned and operated property and casualty insurance company, I would like to respond to the June 14 editorial about the possibility of a return to commercialized bail in Wisconsin. In particular, I would like to clear up some of the misstatements about what bail does or does not do, as these corrections speak to the heart of the issue under consideration.

For starters, the editorial said commercialized bail "does little to ensure public safety." The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics annual reports consistently show that defendants released on bail (financial release) return for their court appearances at a far higher rate than those released unsecured. What could be a better measure of public safety than that? And to be clear, the only purpose of either bail or the alternatives currently being used in Wisconsin is to ensure that defendants show up in court when they are supposed to.

Second, the editorial asked a good question related to the posting of a bail bond: "Where is the incentive to appear in court?"

When someone posts a bail bond, it is usually because he or she cannot afford the full amount required by the judge to secure release. A defendant buys a bail bond and has a huge incentive to appear for several reasons.

First, an agent often will secure collateral, which is held until the defendant appears. This collateral is returned only when the defendant fulfills the terms of the contract, i.e., returns to court.

Second, the agent often works with family and local community members to secure the bond, thereby engendering the defendant's own support system and providing another very powerful incentive: family and peer pressure.

Finally, and this is true of all methods of pretrial release, if the defendant does not return to court, a warrant is issued for his or her arrest. However, only with bail does the defendant face the additional threat of being found and returned to court by a licensed professional bail agent. In fact, when compared to non-secured release, the defendant who posts bail has more - much more - incentive to appear in court. This is why "failure to appear" rates are much lower for bail than other means of release.

Perhaps the most inaccurate statement in the editorial is the notion that someone who posts bail "doesn't have to follow any obligations set by the courts." This is not true. The posting of bail only deals with release, not the conditions of the release.

If a judge orders someone into drug testing, rehabilitation or requires GPS monitoring, no bail agent in America can overrule that judge's orders. In fact, as a surety, we work with our agents to help them assist the judiciary in this capacity, often offering these services through the private sector. This is especially helpful in smaller or in rural jurisdictions, where the courts themselves are unable to provide these services.

In closing, it is important to recognize that the editorial inferred that posting a bail bond would be exclusive to all other means of pretrial release. This, too, is not the case. The measure in question would simply offer defendants an option.

If a defendant wishes to use the current system of posting the entire amount, then he or she will still be able to do so. Unfortunately, most people can't afford to shell out $10,000 or $20,000 and in many cases will be stuck behind bars for an extended period prior to being found guilty of any crime. This is not just a burden on a potentially innocent defendant but costs taxpayers millions of dollars in unnecessary jail costs as well.

The editorial was correct in noting that Wisconsin is one of only a handful of states that do not allow bail bondsmen. While Wisconsin has a long history of being at the forefront of social change, this is one area where it would be best to do what 46 other states currently do - give defendants an option they can afford.

http://www.JacksBailBonds.com

Pretrial Release:A Criminal Justice Pandemic

2011-06-03T19:20:09Z

Thousands of Violent Defendants

Are Released Everyday

To Roam

Our Streets and Neighborhoods

AND YOUR TAX DOLLARS

ARE PAYING FOR IT!

Q 1. What is Pretrial Release?

A 1. It is normally a local government entity that

releases criminal defendants from jail, at no cost to

the defendant.

Q 2. Where does Pretrial Release get its money?

A 2. Their operations are normally funded by local

tax dollars. An average Pretrial Release program can

have a budget in excess of $1 million.

Q 3. How did Pretrial Release get its start?

A 3. It can be traced back to the early 1960’s as a

means of providing release to the financially indigent

defendant who was not charged with a serious crime.

Q 4. Isn’t that a worthwhile program?

A 4. Yes, but the unfortunate fact is that these types

of programs have been expanded beyond the original

scope of just providing for the release of the nonviolent

indigent.

Q 5. So, what’s wrong?

A 5. This method of release is now being applied to

defendants charged with a wide range of criminal

offenses, including violent felons, who are financially

capable of paying for their release if required to do so.

Q 6. Once it provides a defendant with a free release,

then what is its function?

A 6. The program is supposed to maintain contact

with the defendant and make sure that person comes

back to court, as directed, until the case is over.

Q 7. Does it do a good job of this?

A 7. No. It has a very high failure-to-appear rate. In

fact, 10 percent of defendants released on unsecured

bonds were fugitives after one year as compared to

three percent of defendants released on commercial

bail.

Q 8. When the defendant subsequently fails to

appear in court, is anybody held responsible?

A 8. Other than the defendant, no. No one is

financially responsible for the defendant’s failure-toappear.

Q 9. Does anyone within the Pretrial Release

program go after them?

A 9. No. The apprehension of the defendant is usually

left to the local law enforcement officers - where it is a

low priority.

Q 10. Doesn’t this form of release appear to actually

‘reward’ the defendant?

A 10. It can certainly be viewed in that way.

Defendants enjoy their release from custody at

no financial cost and have no subsequent direct

supervision which will require their appearance in

court. Nor is there a financial penalty required of

someone because of a defendant’s failure to appear in

court. Nor does anyone go after them.

Q 11. Doesn’t this method of release seem to support

the idea that “if you reward poor performance, you

just get more poor performance?”

A 11. Yes it does. It also sends the message to

defendants that the crime(s) for which they are

accused are not taken seriously by the community.

Q 12. Doesn’t this penalize the taxpayers?

A 12. Yes. The local taxpayers, through the use of their

tax dollars, have a criminal defendant released back

into the community without any direct supervision

guaranteeing appearance in court. Nor is there a

party being looked to by the community to bear a

financial burden in the form of a penalty for the

defendant’s failure-to-appear. Most importantly, the

local community is exposed to the continued threat

that the defendant may commit additional crimes

while out on release.

Q 13. Can’t this be perceived as a type of taxpayerfunded

“criminal welfare” program?

A 13. Yes it can. The taxpayer pays for the law

enforcement personnel who initially arrest the

suspects, who are then housed in a taxpayer-funded

jail. Defendants are then provided with taxpayerfunded

public defenders and released under a

“free release” program as described above. If the

defendants do eventually appear in court (paid for

by the taxpayer) and are convicted of the charges,

they are incarcerated in a taxpayer-funded prison.

At no point do the defendants assume any financial

responsibility for their own actions.

Q 14. Are most local taxpayers aware such a program

exists?

A 14. No.

Q 15. Is there an alternative way for defendants to be

released prior to their trials?

A 15. Yes. It is called the commercial bail bond

industry.

Q 16. How does it work?

A 16. The defendant, or a family member or friend,

engages the services of a licensed bondsman, who

possesses a state-issued insurance license to secure his

release from custody.

Q 17. Does this cost the taxpayer?

A 17. No. To the contrary, should the defendant fail

to appear, the bondsman agrees to surrender him to

court or pay the authorities the full amount of the bail

bond posted to secure the defendant’s release.

Q 18. So under this method, are the defendants, their

friends or family held financially accountable for

their actions after release as well as for their initial

release from jail?

A 18. Yes.

Q 19. Isn’t this a fairer and more cost effective

method for the taxpayer?

A 19. Yes.

Q 20. Does ALEC have model legislation on this

topic?

A 20. Yes, the Citizen’s Right to Know Act calls for

transparency and accountability in Pretrial Release

programs. A copy can be found at www.alec.org.

Help Pass the Citizens Right to Know Act

2011-06-03T19:12:08Z

Tax-payer funded bail a.k.a. taxpayer funded “Pre-trial Release” programs began in the 1960’s to secure release for first-time, low income, non-violent offenders who couldn’t afford bail. Rather than requiring financial payment for release like commercial bail, these programs require the posting of little or no money, and instead grant release by securing a signed promise to various court supervision requirements, which includes a promise to show up for trial.  Due to jail crowding and lack of government accountability, these tax-payer funded pretrial release programs have mushroomed well beyond their original scope and purpose. Today there are over 300 pretrial release programs nationwide whose participants routinely include violent and repeat offenders – dangerous individuals who should be locked up behind bars or should only be released on the tightest of restrictions.

As a result, many crimes taking place in our communities today are committed by people that we the taxpayers have released from jail through these programs. Among them:

• Ingmar Guandique, who was arrested for assaulting a woman in Washington D.C.’s Rock Creek Park. After obtaining tax-payer, funded pre-trial release, he returned to the park and killed capitol hill intern Chandra Levy while she was jogging in the park. 

• Paul M. Eischeid, a Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang member was arrested for murder. Nevertheless, he obtained pre-trial release and while on release, removed his ankle bracelet monitor and fled. He is currently listed among America’s Most Wanted. 

• Lee Knoch was arrested for assault and obtained pre-trial release. While on release he murdered the man he had previously assaulted. 

• Maurice Patterson of Durham, NC was arrested on seven felony charges. After obtaining pre-trial release, he was arrested again weeks later for breaking and entering.  

• An Oregon man with 49 previous arrests and 15 convictions obtained pre-trial release. While on release, he kidnapped and raped a 13 year old girl.

And these are just a few of the many violent criminals that we the taxpayers are bailing out of jail each and every day.  

Why is this happening?  

1. Because these pre-trial release programs aren’t effectively screening defendants.   

2. Because there aren’t sufficient criteria governing who can and cannot participate in pre-trial release programs, and   

3. Because these programs aren’t even keeping records of their participants.

Why? Because they are not required to report who they allow to participate in these programs.   

This must stop! It’s time to hold these pre-trial release programs accountable.   The Citizens Right to Know Act (HR 1885) has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK) to do just that.

The Citizens Right-to-Know Act will require pre-trial release programs to keep accurate records of defendants that participate in these programs, their criminal records, past convictions, and their previous failures to appear for trial.  Currently, this information on these defendants is neither collected nor reported in any systematic fashion.

Thus, there is no mechanism to determine if pre-trial release agencies are allowing repeat and violent offenders to participate, whether these programs are effective in ensuring that defendants adhere to their pre-trial release requirements or whether these defendants actually show up for trial.    

The Citizens Right to Know Act will require for the first time, reporting of how taxpayer dollars are used. As a result, policy makers and taxpayers will be better equipped to protect public safety.

Congress is debating whether to continue to fund these programs. If Congress continues to fund pretrial release, then Congress must be able to determine the effectiveness of such programs. Taxpayers deserve to know if their limited resources are being spent wisely and their communities are being protected.  

Call Congress today at 202-225-3121 and ask your Member of Congress to co-sponsor HR 1885, the Citizens Right To Know Act! 