World's smallest violin
Upon which i am playing the world's saddest song for Durham's bail bondsmen:
"It's a myth to think this is good for us," said Tony Woods, president of the Durham Bail Bond Alliance and the state Bail Agents Association.
"The bondsmen were not behind raising these guidelines so much," Woods added. "We're seeing no benefit whatsoever from these higher bonds.
I'm going to guess that the new bail guidelines were not designed to benefit bail bondsmen.
And it may very well be the case that the new guidelines will prove excessive, and have to be rolled back a bit. But the number of crimes, high profile and unnoticed, that have been committed in Durham over the past 5 or more years by people who were out on bond has been astounding. Obviously, keeping lots of people locked up indefinitely awaiting trial is not a long-term answer to any of our social ills. But if it gives the rest of us a bit of breathing space to make the kinds of policy decisions necessary to get a handle on our crime and social justice problems, without the hysteria that springs up like fungus after a spring rain whenever someone out on bond does something unbearably stupid, then that's a trade-off we need to make.
Regardless of what it does for business at the bondsmen's place.
Labels: justice, local government
Since 1949, Durhamites have slept soundly, secure in the knowledge that, in our town, erection can be depended upon. Now, thanks to the power of the internets, we can spread that security all over the world.
1 Comments:
When I saw that article, I thought the same thing, but I had to wonder if it was more a case of Stevenson looking for an article in all the dumb places. Given his history of bad journalism, I started imagining him looking for a story about bail bondsmen having a field day with the high bonds, because they would get higher percentages, and instead, because the bondsmen responded, "um, no, it actually hurts us," he wrote a "poor bail bondsmen" story.
Granted, the bondsmen aren't exactly the salt of the earth in general, but whenever I see bizarre quotes like this, I think of all the times where articles quoting me or a friend include the bizarre quotes, and invariably they come from the reporter asking really stupid questions, then having to make a story out of it.
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Unknown, at 5:52 PM
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