Private bail industry says it could help Philadelphia’s ailing system

Despite "stereotypes" of shady bail bondsmen and unshaven bounty hunters on TV, executives in the private bail industry said Monday that they could put an end to Philadelphia's fugitive crisis.

They said professional bail agents would outperform Philadelphia's government-run bail system, which has permitted tens of thousands of criminal defendants to skip court without consequence and amass uncollected bail of $1 billion by the court system's own calculation.

But at a hearing before a state Senate committee, proponents of commercial bail ran into a wall of resistance from top players in the criminal justice system, including the District Attorney's Office, the Defender Association, and a president judge, who disputed whether Philadelphia even faced an unusual problem with defendants' skipping court.

Brian J. Frank, president of a leading national bail insurer, said private firms kept in close touch with defendants and their families to make sure that the accused showed up for trial, even equipping some with electronic monitors.

Frank said the industry did this not out of altruism, but because the firms are on the hook when defendants run.

"We could not have thousands of fugitives or else we would be broke," said Frank, of Lexington National Insurance Corp. of Baltimore.

Pamela Pryor Dembe, president judge of Common Pleas Court, and other witnesses were unmoved. She said private bail businesses in Philadelphia had a history of "corruption and physical abuse."

The city abolished commercial bail in the early 1970s after ugly episodes of criminality in the industry, including shakedowns of gay defendants. It chose to operate bail itself.

Dembe said she was no enthusiast of restoring private bail to a major local role. She was echoed in this by Jodi L. Lobel, a top prosecutor in the District Attorney's Office, and Stuart H. Schuman, a top official of the Defender Association, which represents defendants too poor to hire a lawyer.

Under the Philadelphia bail system, defendants initially deposit 10 percent of their total bail and sign an IOU agreeing that they will owe the remaining 90 percent if they fail to show up for court.

Court officials have acknowledged that for decades, no one made any effort to collect that 90 percent when people ducked court.