“Criminal Justice” Reform, a Hobson's Choice
Not to worry, not gonna leave you libertarians hanging by using a new word like that. A Hobson's choice means a take it or leave it choice. The phrase came into being thanks to Thomas Hobson having a stable in Cambridge England in the 1600's where despite the large number of horses waiting in the stall you were required to take the horse in the stall that was closest to the door. Why? To prevent the best horses from being overused while the lesser quality horses went unused.
And such it is with “criminal justice” reform which is the race between victims rights, liberal virtue signaling activists agendas, and the desire of politicians to get the jails and prisons emptied out so they can spend that money buying votes. We saw the narrow defeat of SB 252 that would have killed cash bail bonds in the state but only because the bondsmen mobilized and worked their tails off. And in that fight the liberals used two main methods to remove objections to eliminating bail bonds; ankle monitoring and their algorithm that was supposed to determine which criminals it was safe to release back into society. But both methods are known to be severely lacking in effectiveness and the only one that will win is the criminal and sometimes not even they win.
Meet 19 year old Daehun White. The New York Times did a story on him back in October of 2018 showing how the angle monitoring craze did him no favors and likely prolonged his poverty and his criminal career. White was released after a month long stay in a city jail for driving a stolen car. He claims it belonged to a friend, and of course he was headed home with snacks for his pregnant soon to be baby momma when pulled over by the cops.
White had no priors and he needed $150 for buying a $1500.00 bail bond, which his family was reluctant to come up with for some reason. But a bunch of do gooders running a non profit Bail Project managed to get the bail lowered to $500 refundable cash bond which the Bail Project paid. When he is released he is given his shoelaces back, the small amount of cash he had when arrested, and a letter from his public defender which he promptly forgot about and didn't read. When he did get around to reading it he found out that he was supposed to report to a private company monitoring service, Eastern Misouri Alternative Sentencing Services (EMASS), pay $300.00 for the first twenty five days service and a $50.00 installation charge, and $10.00 a day afterward till his case was adjudicated. So right off the bat the cash requirements were at $800, over half of the cost of the bail bond.
White was a 19 year old uneducated black kid earning minimum wage at a temp job. With a typical black ghetto family, missing father, unemployed mother, and four siblings. You know the lifestyle, few of them were working so it was all on White to pay his legal costs and without the $300.00 White just didn't report to EMASS within the required 24 hours after being released. About a week later and the judge issued a warrant for his arrest for noncompliance. A few days later White was swept up in a warrant sweep while cops were looking for another criminal and off to jail he went.
Momma calls the courthouse to find out why her baby was back in jail and is told she needs to find $300.00 to pay EMASS to get her sweet Dindonuffin baby back out on the streets again. Momma of course had a criminal history at 13 years old for theft and probation so she knew all about ankle monitors but she didn't have to pay the costs when she was sporting an ankle accessory.
The use of angle bracelet monitoring by private for profit companies has skyrocketed since 2005 to around 125,000 “customers” now wearing the GPS enabled locators. If you are charged with a federal crime the feds will pay the costs of monitoring but as states and cities pick up the tab for 90% of the costs of prisons and jails the players are constantly searching for ways to lower their prisoner count and pass along the cost of incarceration to the criminals. The City can spend $90.00 a day keeping the crook in prison or they can force the detainees to pay $10.00 per day to companies like EMASS with zero cost to the City.
The judges of course like GPS monitoring as it provides CYA factor if the criminal re offends while out awaiting trial. And nationwide the estimate is nearly a half million people wait in jail for their trail as they have no money to pay for bail. That turns into a credit trap for the criminal, after all 70 days after White's first $300.00 payment was made the monitoring was already higher than what he would have paid by just buying a bail bond. And when they fall behind on payments the judge will properly threaten jail time in order to squeeze the money out of the criminals. What all the activism has done is turn bail bond money into a private for profit monitoring service that has the power of the State to enforce the monitoring agreements.
Worse, besides the cost these monitoring agreements have restriction after restriction imposed, allowing the monitoring company or judge to revoke the monitoring for non payment or for breaking other rules of release.
White managed to get out of jail after his momma paid the $300.00 to EMASS. White got a ride down to their offices, got the black box fastened around his ankle, but the extra $300.00 per month for monitoring meant that in four months he was already paying more to the system than what he would have paid in bail money. Defendants are given a choice, plead guilty to a plea deal or risk trail months down the road while paying $300.00 per month.
White wasn't happy with his GPS bracelet, impossible to hide, a terrible conversation starter, made him the butt of jokes constantly, and let's say the accessory isn't conducive to getting hired. Even if you aren't required to disclose your criminal record during a job interview it is hard to miss an ankle monitoring GPS bracelet. Jobs were harder to get and each week the defendant would miss a few hours work reporting in to EMASS to pay their weekly amount and many simply get fired for being a lot of trouble for the employer.
Yet judges know that without the monitoring system it would be risky politically for them to just release criminals. And if the defendants don't pay the costs of monitoring then the city or state must pay and the citizens will be even more alarmed. And removing a GPS bracelet is a matter of using a pair of ordinary scissors.
The race baiters claim that the criminal justice system is racise because 67% of the defendants being monitored while only 24% of the population in a place like Illinois are black. That is more likely because of culture and life choices. One activist mentioned the story spoke of five men in her family wearing monitors at one point or another and that she even had to wear a GPS monitor after an arrest a few years earlier. And defendants are prohibited from associating with ex cons including family members as part of the monitoring agreement.
White's public defender managed to get the monitoring stopped three months after it started, so around $1000.00 had been charged plus the original $500 bail money, plus 12 to 13 visits to EMASS for the weekly check in. Yet White hadn't been paying and owed $700 to Emass at the end, meaning White hadn't paid a dime other than what his momma paid in the beginning. The contract he had signed required he pay his bill in full before the GPS device was removed. White continued to wear the anklet device for a few more weeks and he had stopped checking in each week and had let the battery die. When he did check in with EMASS they knew the story about getting blood from as stone so they removed the anklet device and gave White a bill for $850.00, over five and a half times what it would have cost him had he or his family paid the $150.00 bail cost.
As his case goes on White might manage to get into a diversion program or he might well wind up on parole or out on a deferred charge.
When you hear activists and non profit wanting to “help” criminals it is almost always more of a smash and grab than a genuine desire to help someone that is down. The monitoring services like Kris Steele's TEEM and EMASS are there to rake in the money that was previously going to bail bondsmen to ensure criminals showed up for court.
The other cure all for solving criminal justice reform is algorithms. Computer programs that intake officers insert the criminal history and family history of the defendant to determine if they are likely to re offend while out on pre trail release or if they are likely to flee to avoid facing a judge and paying for their crime. A Baton Rouge newspaper wrote a good story on one system being used in their town and it is about typical for all of the systems in use around the country.
Meet 18 year old Theron Glover. Glover was facing 160 pending criminal charges at the time of his arrest on May 13th for shooting into a crowd and wounding four victims. The pre trial release risk assessment system used by Baton Rouge rated Glover at the lowest level of the five level risk system, eligible for free release with zero supervision. The Metropolitan Crime Commission released a report on Glover's case along with a few others, stating that the risk assessment algorithm was deeply flawed. Two other out of state defendants also earned a risk level 1 free release with no supervision despite their arrest for tying up two CVS Pharmacy employees at gunpoint and the resulting gun battle with police that left one cop wounded.
Metropolitan Crime Commission members claimed that the pre trial risk assessment program recommended that most violent crime offenders be released without bail. Around 30% of all murders arrested received the Level 1 free release no supervision recommendation. At any given day between 1100 and 1200 criminals were in the local jail, about half will be charged with violent crimes or felonies involving guns and typically the other half awaiting trial on theft or drug crimes will have extensive criminal histories. Yet the pre trial risk assessment program recommends no bond for 75% of the violent felony crimes and no bond for 93% of the felons with weapons charges.
One of the people interviewed by the newspaper said that New Orleans has been unwilling to spend the $65 million dollars a year needed for monitoring the pre trial release defendants and have lowered bail amounts in an effort to empty out the city jail. Instead, the snake oil system sold as pre trial risk assessment is used to provide some cover for the judges. The Glover case was mentioned again, Glover had been determined as a risk level 3 in a case involving stolen cars but months later after shooting four people he was given a risk level 1 rating.
Things are no different in Oklahoma. This story covers one Jeremy Brown, arrested for a DUI of some sort, and given three choices: go to jail, pay $500 for a $5000 bond, or enter a pre trial services program with stipulations like a weekly check-in. Not mentioned was the $10.00 per day cost. Brown asked for an OR bond, Own Recognizance bond, but was refused. So between May and August Brown spent three hours a week to check in once per week and paid the $70.00 fee. That $500.00 fee turned into around $1120.00 in charges, $760.00 still owed when he was forced to leave the program due to another arrest for DUI and an assault charge.
These pre trial release programs like Cleveland County Pretrial Services are all over the place and with a vested interest in seeing the programs spread they helped the push to get cash bail eliminated in Oklahoma. Yet they wound up being targeted by the activists working with the ACLU once the activists realized the vast profits of pre trial release programs and how they take advantage of defendants.
Cleveland County Pretrial Services gets $365,000 from Cleveland County to run the pre trial program and do risk assessments on criminals in the county jail. They assign one of four grades then a judge makes the final decision. In addition CCPS has around 70 people in the program with most paying $10.00 per day, $680 per day income for CCPS plus the income for the other programs including ankle monitors plus the $1000 per day from the county. While CCPS claims that the ability to pay Brown stated that he was constantly threatened with being jailed unless he paid his bill.
Brown eventually settled his case with probation and of course CCPS is connected to the company doing the post conviction supervision, Oklahoma Court Services. Brown pays $25.00 to do drug tests, racked up more debt to the company, and claims he can't afford to pay the debt and fees and can't hold down a job due to the weekly check ins at OCS office.
And there is some truth to his claim. Saddling convicted criminals with debt and fines does make it harder for them to start over yet most can agree to a $40.00 per month payment plan and get on with their life. But these are criminals for the most part, not regular people that are responsible and hard working. What income they have is usually from illegal activities or off the books cash labor, they aren't gonna pay taxes much less fines and fees.
Dealing with career criminals is not that hard. First you have swift and sure punishment for crime and they serve full time for their crimes in order of the commission of the crime, not serving six sentences at once. Doing that does empty out the prisons but it also tells criminals that once you are arrested for one crime the next ten have zero cost to you in terms of money or time spent in prison.
Society ought to be forcing prisoners to serve their time while working for a small wage and applying that wage toward their fees and fines, child support, and restitution, then do like Trump did and separate punishment from rehabilitation once they have paid their debt to society. Let them come out debt free, including child support free by the way, so they have a shot at making a decent life. But that doesn't mean you allow them to lay about.
The post conviction supervision ought to mean working a 40 hour a week job and if not for money then in service to the community with transportation provided and lunch served. Put the supervision check in on the weekend or at night. Then enforce the rules or send them back to prison where they were at least paying their own way.
