Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash
Finding help to settle the bail of your loved ones has gotten more accessible, thanks to the services of bail bond agents or fiancistas, as interpreted in Spanish.
Hundreds of people get booked for breaking the law every day in most American states, like Florida.
Many of these offences are bailable, especially if first-time offenders committed them, but bail prices can be anywhere from $250 to hundreds of thousands of dollars. These fees are often too high for many offenders to settle at once.
This has led many families to seek the services of a bail bonds agent or fiancistas anytime they have to help a loved one post bail.
Bail Bondsmen Serve All Kinds of People
In the state of Florida, everyone, including the Hispanic people, can easily access the services of a fiancista. After the bail hearing following the arrest, the judge sets the bail, depending on many factors, including the defendant’s criminal record and past court history, and the defendant is left to sort out the bail.
These bail bondsmen provide sureties for all kinds of bonds ranging from appeal bonds to felony bonds to state bonds to supersedeas bonds and even to SOR (Supervised Own Recognition).
Whether the defendant is well-to-do or of a humble background, bondsmen can help to speed up bail processes.
In the case of fraud, which can be prosecuted as a state or a federal offence depending on various factors, bondsmen are especially useful as they can provide a surety that the defendant will appear in court for trial.
The Importance of Bail Bondsmen in Communities
The bail industry serves to help people with second chances to prove their innocence. Arrests do not necessarily mean guilt. Many people are in police custody because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
In small counties where many cannot afford to post bail, jail cells are overcrowded. Overcrowding can also occur when the judicial system goes on recess. This is usually a big concern for both inmates and correctional facilities, who are tasked with making sure the inmates are not abused, which is their fundamental human right. Defendants’ families need support to continuously prove their loved one’s innocence in cases like this until their trial.
Fiancistas are available 24/7, like various emergency services to help with these issues. Your loved one could be arrested by 2 AM on a Sunday, and you will find a bondsman who will stand in as the surety to secure their bail as long as you can provide the necessary information on the charge, the type of bail and 10 per cent of the amount charged for bail. This helps families reunite faster than it would have if the defendant or their family had begun posting bail by themselves, which can be tedious.
One underrated importance of bail bond agents is that they make communities safer. Defendants out on bonds are more likely to be law-abiding and avoid any form of a misdemeanor. The same thing applies to a defendant out on bond for a felony charge.
“I thought people paid their own bail” — ex-bail bondsman.
Joshua Page worked as a bail bondsman for a year as a research endeavour, which led to a 2019 commentary on the positives and negatives of the bail industry. In this commentary, he details the story of a certain Anna who needed to post a $1,500 bail for the father of her child.
“A young Laotian woman, Anna flew into the bail office toward the end of a long, boring shift,” Page’s detail about Anna’s story began.
“She had to bail out her ex, who was in jail. I explained that she needed to pay $150 (10 per cent of the $1,500 bail) and co-sign the bond. She had left the defendant recently because she was tired of taking care of him. But here she was, doing it again”.
“So, why do it?” I asked.
“Anna felt she had no choice: If she didn’t bail him out, he would remain in jail and unable to work or help care for their child. She hurried through the paperwork and paid the money, eager to get back to her mother, who was facing deportation to Laos.”
Page’s commentary was a breakdown of how families handle bail and the implications of posting said bail while educating the public on the role of fiancistas in helping people without means to give their loved ones another shot at a normal, law-abiding life.
“I assumed people paid their own bail before working as a bail bond agent,” writes Page in his commentary.
“I was wrong, and the reason was simple: Most criminal defendants are poor.”
Families looking to post bail for their loved ones may be required to provide collateral to secure the bond, which will lead the bondsman to stand as a surety for releasing their loved one to get their acts together while they await trial.