Philadelphia authorities have to do a better job when issuing Get-Out-of-Jail cards, but needed reforms in the bail system are more complex than merely putting Dog the Bounty Hunter on the case.
Given the controversy surrounding the recent freeing of a man jailed on a gun charge, the court system's handling of bail can be anything but fail-safe. The suspect in a 2011 murder and an associate were arrested Tuesday for allegedly killing a witness to the earlier murder last week.
Indeed, an Inquirer investigation in 2009 revealed widespread problems with court defendants who failed to show for trial, with the number of fugitives once climbing to 47,000. With a no-show rate for court defendants that in itself is criminal, the disclosures triggered reform efforts by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, as well as a separate panel of experts put to work by the state Senate.
Two years later, the clock is ticking, and it's time to move ahead - as well as resist detours. Yet, the Senate panel last week heard another pitch for privatizing city-run bail procedures. Commercial bondsmen contend their trade has been professionalized since decades ago when corruption led Philadelphia to scrap its private system.
Still, even the slightest risk of a repeat is a big obstacle. That's why both District Attorney Seth Williams and Pamela Pryor Dembe, president judge of Common Pleas Court, wisely favor retooling, not scrapping, the cash-bail system under which defendants must put up 10 percent of their bail to go free.
Under the current system, defendants ran up a $1.5 billion tab in unpaid bail forfeitures. So it's hard to see how saddling crime suspects and their families with the cost of a commercial bond will be an improvement.
Instead, the city needs to move quickly to update guidelines for who's a flight risk or poses a criminal threat. The Jan. 5 release of gun-charge suspect Jorge Aldea - only hours before prosecutors lodged murder charges against him - appears to be stark proof that current guidelines aren't working.
In addition to fine-tuning standards for bail, the state Supreme Court also should move ahead with earlier proposals for a crackdown to round up more fugitives and jail them until trial.
There are no easy fixes, but the city's bail system can be repaired.
