Bail Bonds
The principle of bail is basic to our system of justice and its practice as old as English law itself. When the administration of criminal justice was in its infancy, arrest for serious crime meant imprisonment without preliminary hearing and long periods of time could occur between apprehension and the arrival of the King's Justices to hold court. It was therefore a matter of utmost importance to a person under arrest to be able to obtain a provisional release from custody until his case was called. This was also the desideratum of the medieval sheriff, the representative of the Crown in criminal matters,
who wore many hats including that of bailing officer. He preferred the conditional
release of persons under arrest to their imprisonment for several reasons: it was less
costly and troublesome; the jails were easy to breach and under then existing law the
Jailer was hanged if a prisoner escaped; the jails were dangerous to health, and as there was no provision for adequate food, many prisoners perished before trial was held Purpose Of Bail - 2Influenced by factors such as these, the sheriff was inclined to discharge himself of responsibility for persons awaiting trial by handing them into the personal custody of their friends and relatives. Indeed, in its strict sense, the word "bail" is used to describe the person who agrees to act assuredly for the accused on his release from jail and becomes responsible for his later appearance in court at the time designated. As surety, the bail was liable under the law for any default in the accused's appearance. Purpose Of Bail - 3Between the 13th and 15thcenturies the sheriff's power to admit to bail was gradually vested, by a series of statutes, in the justices of the peace. In the case of a person committed for felony, the justices of the peace had the authority to require, if they thought fit, his remaining in jail until the trial took place, but, on the other hand, a person committed for a misdemeanor case could, at common law, insist on being released on bail if he found sufficient sureties. Writing in the mid-1700's, Blackstone described the arrest-bail procedure his day in the following passage: "When a delinquent is arrested...he ought regularly to be carried before a justice of the peace...If upon...inquiry it manifestly appears that either no such crime was committed or that the suspicion entertained of the prisoner as wholly groundless, in such cases only it is lawful totally to discharge him.
Conclusion: Congress hoped to achieve a greater degree of accuracy in assessing flight and danger of arrestees through establishing the Bail Reform Act of 1984, which set objective guidelines for judicial officers in assessing release conditions including taking into account for the first time the probability an offender will re-offend while on pretrial release. It was also hoped that the Act would bring back the community's trust in bond setting practice. Overall, the benefits of the Bail Reform Act of 1984 do exceed any detriments, but some problems do exist. These problems include the uniformity in the application of the Bail Reform Act of 1984, as well as the interpretation of dangerousness to the community. Through future legislative and executive reform, this Act will go through multiple changes until these issues are addressed.
If you or a loved one has been arrested and booked into jail, your first thoughts will probably be about securing their release. In our experience, this is very important, particularly if your loved one is incarcerated in Texas. As you know, the Texas jails can be a very difficult place. You'll want to make sure that they are home and safe, able to prepare for court. As you know, time spent in jail can also impact employment. Maintaining a good work history will help throughout the legal process, as well as provide much needed income.
Before jails were even implemented in America, the colonists had quite a different approach to punishment that led to how jails came to be. The original outlook of criminals came from the Colonists religious belief that criminals were sinners who were workers of the devil. The Colonists felt they had to be protected from devil’s workforce and therefore criminals must have their name run into the ground, be cast out of the town, or in the most extreme cases be hung. Before the Colonists accepted institutions, they looked to public humiliation as a means of correcting the lesser criminals. The harsher punishments, such as death, were given to people who were believed to be beyond redemption. But, with growing populations due to industrialization of cities townspeople grew less and less known to one another. With less recognition between citizens the thought of public humiliation as a punishment was weakening as a threat. On top of that, people were beginning to grow weary that capital punishment may have been too barbaric and overall ineffective. Yet, the colonists were still not completely convinced to utilize jails. The hesitation was a result of the community feeling that most men were not salvageable and institutionalizing them would only be rewarding. Although, this conception began to unravel in the late 1600’s when the Pennsylvania Quakers came up with a plan that would eventually be accepted.
Do you have a friend or family member in jail, and they have asked for you to be the guarantor on their bail bond? It is common to feel like you are pressured to make an immediate decision, not allowing you the time to learn about what is really being asked for you. Ultimately, you could be held responsible for paying the bail bond if the accused person doesn’t show up to court on the agreed upon date. That is why it helps to ask these questions before you agree to helping.
People were even punished harshly for trivial crimes such as stealing a loaf of bread. . This was considered a serious offence in this time period. These crimes were mainly executed people who had no job. So they resorted to these crimes to get a pay.
In the early years going to prison for a crime was not common. When people committed crimes, they were punished by corporal punishment, forced labor, social ostracism, and many far worse punishments. People began using imprisonment as a form of punishment after the American Revolution. In England these practice of imprisonment been taking place since the 1500s in the form of dungeons and other detention facilities. Prisons were one of the first buildings introduced in the New World. In early America prisons were not looked at like prisons are today, most crimes where punished on the spot and the person released. Most of the people that had long term sentences were people that owed debt. Other type of punishments that was used was fines, public shame, physical chastisement, and death. Misdemeanors were punishable by fines, just like some are today. The United States prison building efforts went through three waves. First the Jacksonian Era, which led to the increase use of imprisonment and rehabilitive labor as punishment for their crimes in almost all states by the time of the American Civil War. Second was the Progressive Era, which was after the civil war. The Progressive Era brought in the usage of parole, probation, and indeterminate sentencing. Third was in the early 1970s, by this time the number in prisons had increased five times.
"Today's system, where imprisonment is a common penalty for most crimes, is a historical newcomer." Many crimes during 1718 and 1776 were punishable by death. This was usually done by hanging, sometimes by stoning, breaking on the rack and burning at the stake. Towards the end of the 1700's people realized that cruel punishment did little to reduce crime and their society was changing the population grew and people started to move around more frequently. There had to be a search for new punishments. "New punishments were to rely heavily on new ideas imported from Europe in the writing of such social thinkers of the Enlightenment as the baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire, Thomas Pain and Cesare Beccaria". These thinkers came to believe that criminals could be rehabilitated."
bad that it is hard to describe them. The prisoners were treated very badly. In this time,
The status of the criminal justice system in Europe during the 1700s was the product of long tradition of aristocracy. An aristocracy government is one in which land is owned by particular families and is passed down through the generations of a family line. The monarch of the region grants titles and powers to the privileged classes, who in return keep order within their land and swear loyalty to the monarch. Property and power in an aristocracy were the privileges of birth alone and being merit was simply irrelevant. Their lives circled around maintaining, while attempting to expand, their wealth and power. Historically, as a higher class among others, aristocrats were known to be negligent towards the poor. To where they were prone to appoint
In the 1700’s the United States consisted of the colonies. Prisons were not yet made due to the low population of the colonies and the colonies taking their own justice. Ways to punish people in that time were whippings, the dunking chair, the stocks, and the scarlet letter. Basically, public humiliation was used as a deterrent to control the people. This stopped working when the population began to grow bigger, so other methods had to be used. Cesare Beccaria was a member of the Classical School of penology and influenced the way people thought about punishment. He suggested that punishments should be defined and judges should not have total power. He also stated that laws had to be public and clear. He also said that punishments should be the “minimal possible” in order to deter others from committing similar crimes. This lead to imprisonment being the main punishment used to deter crimes. The Philadelphia Society for Assisting Distressed Prisoners helped to write the new criminal code of 1786, which included hard labour as a form of punishment within a person’s jail sentence. The Philadelphia Society for Assisting Distressed Prisoners bec...
"Crime and Punishment in Elizabethan England." Crime and Punishment in Elizabethan England. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2013. Citation (3)
The convict leasing system started because after the civil war and the passing of the thirteenth amendment, abolishing slavery, poor soother states had to contend with the addition of African Americans living freely in society but also contend with black criminals. Before the reconstruction era slave holders were in charge of punishing criminals and always did so privately. Because of the unknown effect on the economy this made the cost of criminal justice skyrocket, leaving state government desperate to find a solution to cut cost.
United States locks up more people, per capita, than any other nation. Bail system has failed to keep people arrested out jail and the increasing rate of people in jail is alarming. Many District Attorney forment defendant to take a plea deal, instead of waiting for a trial (Buettner). Bail reform has help put fewer people in jail, but has lead to many lost jobs for people who works at the jail. Bail system is a profit motive for the bail industry.
Incarceration has been the center of the United States justice system ever since the opening of the nation’s first prison. In order to understand how the aspects of the first corrections institutions correlate to later correctional practices seen today. Whether it was temporary or permanent, there has always been some form of detainment for offenders, and they were always held against their will. Imprisonment of offenders in earlier times was done primarily to hold the accused until the authorities determined the offender’s actual punishment. Jails and prisons create a vicious and expensive cycle of crime that usually just end up overcrowding correctional facilities.
When Shakespeare was born in 1564, Queen Elizabeth had taken power a mere 6 years prior, and her justice system was very different from ours. In this paper, I hope to explore some of the ways punishments were different, such as how many crimes had individual punishments, often times depending on how severe the crime was. I will also go in-depth to one of the most infamous cases of the medieval period.