A police chief in Ocean County is outraged that a convicted sex offender who recently tried to solicit a 12-year-old girl was released pretrial, on house arrest with an electronic monitoring bracelet.
Police and the prosecutor in Middlesex County complain that over his objections, a judge let a man caught with more than $50,000 worth of heroin and a 9 mm handgun out of jail while awaiting trial.
Both cases are alarming. But are they really the fault of bail reform, as these frustrated officials claim? No.
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Sometimes judges make bad calls. We don’t know all the details, but let’s say for the sake of argument that they did here. It still doesn’t mean our new pretrial system, which went into effect Jan. 1, is making us less safe.
To see why, consider what would have happened under the old system.
First, these judges wouldn’t even have had the option of detaining a dangerous person without bail. Under the old law, the only factor was a defendant’s risk of flight – not the threat posed to the community.
That means you could walk free with no pretrial supervision if you had money. Bail bondsmen rarely got involved unless you failed to show up in court. But the poor languished behind bars even if they didn’t pose any risk.
Now, under this new system, a risk assessment is done based on your history. A judge can detain a drug dealer who might threaten witnesses, for example, no matter how much money he has. Those who aren’t detained are released with pretrial supervision, instead of money bail.
The fact that judges didn’t go along with prosecutors’ requests for pretrial detention in these particular cases is no reason to return to that old system.
Consider the sex offender, in Little Egg Harbor. In the old days, if he could afford bail, he might have been released with no ankle bracelet, and certainly no house arrest, which didn’t exist. So he’s getting more supervision now than he would have if he were released before the reform.
You could argue that if he were unable to afford bail, he would have been detained under the old system. But why should public safety hinge on the level of someone’s affluence or the depth of his poverty? It should be determined by a risk assessment and a judge.
This guy should have been under stricter supervision all along, until the community could be notified under Megan’s Law of his release from prison. Why was he allowed to roam about and pick another victim? That is an outrage – but it is not the fault of bail reform.
An accused Bloods gang member would likely have been released with bail under the old system. Gang members routinely sprung their friends. Even if a judge had set the amount high, they could have gotten him out on a 10 percent bond, with no pretrial monitoring.
You may disagree with the judge’s decision not to detain a man on drug and weapons charges. But was the old system, in which a gang member could simply buy his freedom, really safer?
No. Focusing on the rare case and trying to argue it’s the rule is not a fair way to measure this new policy. More than half the time, judges have agreed to detain people under the new system, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts. About 40 percent of those released get the highest level of pretrial monitoring.
Bail reform may need tinkering, and inevitably, there will be some bad calls, just as there were under the old system. But the worst solution would be to return to the days when violent people bought their freedom, and the poor were jailed simply because they couldn’t. The only people who were truly safer then were bail bondsmen.
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