Assembly considers bill to require bail

A bill that would require all defendants except those who are indigent to post a secured bond is making its way through the House of Delegates.

A subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations referred HB 728 back to the larger committee last week after unanimous approval. The bill, which has the potential to cut state general funds to pretrial and refer non-indigent defendants to bail bondsmen, has the local Offender Aid and Restoration office worried.

Pat Smith, executive director of OAR’s Jefferson Area Community Corrections office, said major funding cuts could put “pretrial out of business as we know it.”

According to the bill’s fiscal impact statement, about $8.8 million in state general funds has been awarded to pretrial programs in FY 2010. It’s not clear how much money could be cut from pretrial if the bill becomes law — Smith said the bill is tied to a $5 million cut, but the impact statement suggests an 11 percent cut in line with a caseload reduction.

The issue either has been or is being discussed in a handful of states across the country. A similar bill was passed in Florida in 2009 and North Carolina is considering the issue.

The Virginia Community Criminal Justice Association and other groups representing jails and sheriffs have come out and opposed the bill, which they say was introduced on behalf of bail bondsmen to increase their customer base.

Virginians for the Preser-vation of Bail see it as a way to help make up the state’s projected $4 billion budget shortfall. Conner Morris, the group’s spokesman, said the private sector is prepared to do the work without cost to taxpayers. Morris said the bill has nothing to do with increasing customers.

“Some people are potentially dangerous without any accountability,” Morris said. “These are people who could use the private industry bail system to garner their release.”

Every morning, Smith said, OAR staff members interview people at the jails. The inmates undergo a criminal record check and risk assessment, which are used to formulate OAR’s recommendation to the court.

“We don’t talk about bond per se, but our recommendation could be to release to pretrial, the same bond or on own recognizance,” Smith said. “There have been times when we recommended decreased bond.”

Smith’s office doesn’t recommend a certain bail amount. However, some other offices across the state do, causing friction between pretrial services and bail bondsmen, said Bill Shannon, owner of Shannon Bail Bonds.

“In some areas, they’re opposed because [pretrial services] get too involved in determining the type and amount of bond,” he said. “I haven’t seen that here.”

If a person is waiting for a report to determine indigence, Smith said, it could increase that person’s jail stay by three to five days and therefore crowd the jail. The Albemarle-Charlottes-ville Regional Jail, which has a rated capacity of 329 inmates, regularly houses about 550 people a day and is actively looking for ways to reduce its population to avoid building a new jail.

Col. Ronald Matthews, the jail’s superintendent, said he believes the bill would increase the jail population and would be problematic for people who aren’t indigent but can’t afford bond.

Morris said that wouldn’t happen.

“If there is anyone sitting inside because they don’t have the fee, and if we know they’re there, we’ll get them out,” Morris said.

Smith said the state added 20 pretrial positions last year in order to reduce statewide jail population by 3,000 people. One of those positions was added locally, Smith said, and the local office is on target with reductions at local jails.