Abstract

After being arrested and booked, most felony defendants are released to await trial. On the day of the trial, a substantial percentage fail to appear. If the failure to appear is not quickly explained, warrants are issued and two quite different systems of pursuit and rearrest are put into action. Public police have the primary responsibility for pursuing and rearresting defendants who were released on their own recognizance or on cash or government bail. Defendants who made bail by borrowing from a bond dealer, however, must worry about an entirely different pursuer. When a defendant who has borrowed money skips trial, the bond dealer forfeits the bond unless the fugitive is soon returned.

As a result, bond dealers have an incentive to monitor their charges and ensure that they do not skip. When a defendant does skip, bond dealers hire bail enforcement agents, more colloquially known as bounty hunters, to pursue and return the defendants to custody. We compare the effectiveness of these two different systems by examining failure to appear rates, fugitive rates and capture rates of felony defendants who fall under the respective systems. We apply propensity score and matching techniques.  To read the rest of this article or to download please click on this link: Public Vs. Private