A Deep Dive into the Cash Bail System and Criminal Justice Reform with Ken W. Good

Imagine a world where the nuances of the cash bail system are no longer a mystery. We promise to guide you through its labyrinth, starting with a deep dive into its 200-year evolution, its merits, and potential repercussions of bail reform. With the insight of our esteemed guest Ken W. Good, a seasoned lawyer and author of Goods on Bail, we unravel the intricacies of how this private bail system operates to ensure people show up in court.

In a world where the impact of the criminal justice system and drug policy on crime rates is a pressing concern, we pull back the curtain on these issues with an enlightening exploration. We study the high failure-to-appear rates in certain counties, and California, the challenges of drug policy, and the unintended consequences of criminalizing certain drugs. Engage in our thought-provoking analysis of how these policies intersect with the cash bail system and impact our society.

We press on to delve into the hot-button topic of criminal justice reform, inspecting the effectiveness of rehabilitation vs incarceration, and the looming question of accountability in our justice system. Hear heart-wrenching stories of families affected by these systems, and the potential of government-funded rehab programs as alternatives to prison. We wrap up by emphasizing the importance of respect in online discussions and the role it plays in shaping effective policies. Sit back and let us navigate these complex waters together.

Music: Coma-Media (intro)
                 WinkingFoxMusic (outro)
Recorded: 8/9/23

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The following conversation discusses zero cash bail policy, the merits of it and the consequences. Get ready to hear disagreements on bail reform fleshed out and the different approaches to this issue. This episode features Ken W Goode. Mr Goode graduated from Hardin-Simons University in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He received a Master of Education degree in 1986 from Tarleton State University a part of the Texas A&M system. In 1989, he received his law degree from the Texas Tech School of Law, where he was also a member of the Texas Tech Law Review.

Speaker 1: 0:41

Mr Goode has argued cases before the Supreme Court of Texas and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, along with numerous court of appeals, including the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He's the author of Goods on Bail, a practice guide created for bail industry professionals. In addition, he has written numerous articles on the subject of bail reform, including what successful bail reform looks like. Mr Goode is married and has two daughters. If you enjoy this conversation, I ask only one thing to share it with a friend. Thank you. Thanks for coming on the show, ken. Really happy to have you here today.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Well, thank you for having me. I look forward to the conversation.

Speaker 1: 1:30

This is a topic that I feel as if it should have been discussed before on the show, but just hasn't. There's almost that point talking to a different lawyer just featuring civil rights and that movement, but bail reform has never really been on the docket for speaking to people. So I really look forward to this conversation, and I first want to start off by just simply asking what is cash bail? How did it come to existence? What's the historical context to it?

Speaker 2: 2:00

Well, I think cash bail and I just call it the private industry bail system, but it dates back 200 years. It came to the United States with the first people who came over on on boat, so, mayflower, they brought their common law system with them and bail is kind of the common law system, but what bail does is what what? What cash bail is the private shirty bail industry. It is a system that is better than any other system of release that ensures people show up for court.

Speaker 2: 2:33

One of the very first types of release intact in the United States was if. If the defendant didn't show up for court, then the bail bondsman took their place, and so it quickly changed from that to be a monetary sum. That's the reason why bonds have a monetary amount. You pay a premium, just like you get for your car, but if you don't show up for court, then the private industry has to pay that entire amount and or go find you, and so the the difference between the private industry and any other type of release is the failure to appear rate. People go to court much more often, and if they don't, the private industry has an incentive to get them back as quickly as possible that no other release system has, and that's why you see backlogs build up in any any other system that uses a different type of release, and that's the reason why we've been around for 200 years. We do one thing, we do it very well we get people to court.

Speaker 1: 3:27

Now, the pushback on cash bail has been amounting for years now and some of the critiques include that people who can't afford cash bail, like the one of the historical context of cash bail was the judge was set it so just enough so the person could pay it, but enough. There'll be a large consequence to that person if they did not show up in there, as you mentioned, not receive it back, not have it returned to that person. But now you know this is being set even, say, $500 or $1,000. Families of lower socioeconomic communities may not be able to afford that, which could lead to them losing their jobs. They have not the best lawyers, they can't afford a better lawyer because they just lost their job. They can't pay rent, they lose their house, you lose their kids. Child welfare officers take the kids. So would you say those are some of the fair critiques of the system, or how do you look at those critiques or what do you see as all?

Speaker 2: 4:21

I think those critiques are unfair, and let me tell you why. I don't believe any first time offender is stuck in jail. I think that's very clear as a result of our form, the discussions that we've been having the last few years, and what we've discovered is, if you're in jail and you have a criminal history, well then you're not in jail because you're you can't afford bail. You're in jail because you have a criminal history, and then I would say that we have this issue about we can't afford bail and we have this. I think this is a false narrative because we tie the hands of judges in the interest of, hey, we need to protect the poor, we tie the hands of judges and then judges cannot address gangs, career criminals or organized crime, and so I think it is a false narrative.

Speaker 2: 5:10

If you go all the way to California, where this thing started, the argument was not really poor people were stuck in jail, our jails are overcrowded and the courts were ordering them to be thousands of them to be released because they couldn't provide adequate medical care. That's the way it started in California, and so they started emptying their jails and their prisons with tens of thousands of people and the US Supreme Court the dissenting opinion on that was like you've got to expect trouble. You're releasing tens of thousands of convicted criminals and now, looking back at that, they were speaking. You know they were predicting the future.

Speaker 1: 5:50

That kind of leads me to something, though, because, going into say cash bail and that reform, you spoke to successful cash bail reform policies and what those look like, what are they and how do you address those issues that may be associated?

Speaker 2: 6:07

Well, I think successful policies for release are account, you know has a central component of accountability. And so you know, look at Harris County where they've entered into a settlement, where they've agreed you have to miscourt two or three times before they'll do anything to you. Well, you know, the criminal element sees that for what it is. It's a green light to commit more crime. So if you agree that you, or through the system that you create, you create so much chaos that you cannot hold anybody accountable, then our criminal element see that for what it is a green light to commit more crime. So a successful release system would be one that has as a key component accountability.

Speaker 2: 6:47

So you want to give a first time offender a shot at a personal bond. I mean, these are problem children to begin with. Somebody needs to hold their hand. We do a lot more. The private industry does a lot more than just take money and expect people to go to court. We take them to court, we go get them when they don't show up. So the accountability and also the getting people to court and timely, and then, if they don't show up, having a repercussion for that, what we're stuck with, or what we're seeing through these bell reform measures is there's no consequences for not coming to court. I mean, when you have somebody in Harris County or in California or in New York who's miscourt four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times and the court's still in releasing them, then why are you not expecting that they'll commit more crime? They don't see any consequences for not doing it.

Speaker 1: 7:34

See, I think that's a fair point. I think you see that play out in major cities across the country. A point that I like to return to earlier is a point that how people who may be one time or first, one of the first time offenders, excuse me who may have to go to bed or not be able to make bail, spend time in prison and then lose those kind of critical aspects of their life and how they're affected by it. Once I listened to an interview with maybe you know the lawyer's name, robin Steinsberg is her name. She's a big proponent of cash bail. She led a fund to kind of get people out of bail or to post people's bail. I should say she mentioned that 90s. I want to say no, it was over 50% of the people that she funded her bail fundees.

Speaker 1: 8:25

I guess you could say they receive their trials, were dismissed or there is some kind of like their settlement, and I think I'm not going to use her point as like this all giving say. But what I will say and why I saw is that the overwhelmingly majority of trials you know certain areas high as 90% they don't go to trial. They take these plea deals or the these settlements. That more oftentimes and not or can be harsh, right harsh and more harsh than maybe necessary or may be the result if it did get taken the trial. So they take these to kind of maybe get time served, to kind of expedite the process, but I'm curious as to what you think about that.

Speaker 2: 9:08

On, Well, I think that's emblematic of a lot of things that we're saying right now, especially in the misdemeanor area. So let me address that specifically. In Harris County and I think in California, on misdemeanors, I've had several sources tell me you know there's a DA and you know we, we, you know we may talk about a yellow County study. The DA there says that in misdemeanor cases, courts across New York I mean across California the failure to appear rates 80%. That means 80% of the people scheduled to go to court on any given day do not show up. And in Harris County, which is in Houston, where they use a similar type of release system, they are getting the same results and 80% failure to appear rate. Now think about what the consequences of that are. In our normal urban cities we have the same number of people on average arrested every given week, and so the same number of cases on average are added to the conveyor belt, which is, you know, a reference to the community criminal justice system, and it has to go through the criminal justice system to get resolved. And if you create enough of a backlog, enough of a chaos system, then you have no choice to dismiss the case to keep the criminal justice system from collapse, and so that's what you're seeing.

Speaker 2: 10:21

You know, I did a review. I did a review of a report for last August, for the month, for the month of August in Harris County to see all the different misdemeanor cases and how they were disposed for the month. Over 90% were dismissed. If you look 10 years ago, that number was a third of that and so that tells you it's not a good number. That's not a good thing. I mean, I would say if we're filing cases and we're just missing 90% of them, we're picking on a segment of the community. That's not what's happening. They've got a criminal justice system that's collapsing. They can't hold people accountable. So, as a result, they're just missing the cases and that's leading to more crime because people see that for what it is.

Speaker 2: 11:01

Well, they didn't do anything to me this time. Why don't I do it again? Why don't I do a little bit more? That's why you see crime going up and violent crime is increasing. The YOLO County the A, did a report where he compared simple release people released a no bond and people released on a shirty bail the private industry bail and he found that people released on no bond, without consequences, without accountability, had a 200% greater risk of committing violent offenses in the future, for the next four years or for the next two years. That's a terrible number. I mean. Let's do the opposite. You can decrease your chances of a violent crime happening to almost 200% for an individual by changing the type of release they have. Who wouldn't do that in a heartbeat? But that's where we find ourselves right now.

Speaker 1: 11:55

Yeah, I think what you say is true. I mean I reviewed that study. It was actually well covered too across the board from all these different media outlets.

Speaker 2: 12:05

So I mean, it was very well covered.

Speaker 1: 12:08

And it was also kind of in supplement of a study previously launched in August of 2022, where critics say there was no baseline, so no control group, so they couldn't be like, oh well, what was the baseline right? So this study was kind of in done as a result of those critics saying those critiques. But my point being here is I think the points you make are true and you can see them in major cities and you hear about uptick in crime. You see brazen crime, especially on the rise, and then with thefts people won't be charged. I think in California it's under $950, which is a lot of money.

Speaker 1: 12:50

But I think there's also a point to why this cash bail came to be. I don't think the people on the other side pointing this at least not most of them are these bad faith actors. I think they see kind of a broken criminal justice system in certain regards not every single life, but certain regards and they're trying to maybe reform it to protect the person who really just got put in that rough situation and the system screwing them over and could destroy their livelihood, and they've seen that over and over again and maybe they do these things without realizing the full cost. It's like not saying what this is how, but hell is paved with good intentions and I'm not saying that.

Speaker 2: 13:28

What I think people fail to realize is that 50% of murder victims in the United States are young black males and so Predominantly the people that are killing them are also young black male. Before this uptick in crime, when crime was going down, we had reduced crime sufficiently that we had increased the life expectancy of young black males by a year or two. That's the equivalent of solving obesity for these people. That's a real number, and we've now done a complete backtrack. The reason why we've done a backtrack is we've been sold a bill of goods that we're mistreating criminals or the defendants, and we're completely ignoring that the victims of the crimes is the same demographic.

Speaker 1: 14:20

No, that's a fair point. I think it's a nuanced topic. I guess my only counter if it would even be called the counter is I think there's a point as to why these policies are being put forward, and that is a system that does not serve justice 100% of the time. Your point is that these reform policies are not working. They're actually counterproductive. They're linked to more crime occurring. To cite the Yolo County study, there was a lot of key findings. I have a couple other ones here. We mentioned the 200% recivivism rate, and it's also that those same individuals were re-rusted 160% for 163% more crimes than individuals released on regular bail. Those crimes, I believe, of those people. This might be the August 2022 study, so I don't want to conflict the two studies. Some of these crimes included murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, so these are some pretty serious things. How do you see the other, like the proponents of cash bail? Maybe where they're coming from, or do you think this is a perfect system?

Speaker 2: 15:40

No, I don't see where they're coming from, because I think that they're kind of have created a box and put themselves in it. The way I look at it, if you go back, oh, five or six election cycles, you can see where, six months before the election, something happened and so suddenly we were blowing it out of proportion. We were having protests and we were saying one party was saying to one demographic you're being mistreated and you need to come out and vote and you need to get angry because we need to correct this. Okay, they came out to vote and then, after the election, everything went back to status quo. Then, over time, that demographic started supporting what I would call the true believers, because they kept being told his problem and no one was fixing it, and so we started having true believers elected.

Speaker 2: 16:24

And then we have, like California, the federal courts ordered them to release up to 40,000 convicted criminals because they won't build a new jail or build more prisons, and I think we've now just seen that escalate. All we're doing is looking for ways to not put people in prison. We're not addressing whether they need to be in prison. We're not addressing whether someone who's in prison has now become a productive citizen or would become one. We're just doing across the board decisions. We're not looking at anything about public safety anymore. It's all about dollars and cents.

Speaker 2: 16:59

And I think our friends on the left would probably, if they were speaking honestly, they would say we put ourselves in a box and we can't get out of it because if we don't continue these policies we won't get reelected. The perfect example of that, I think, was recently several things that happened. The Illinois Supreme Court denied an appeal where they were being sold. Hey, they're going to overturn the statute which was going to limit a bail, and they didn't. I would say it was a bad decision. But I think the reality of what they were saying is you're in the box, don't come to us to get you out. But you're also now seeing the tipping point.

Speaker 2: 17:36

That NAACP in Oakland just came out with a letter blasting the elected officials. They're all supporting the same party saying crime is epidemic. We need a state of emergency on crime. The DA came out saying oh, I can't believe they're doing these Republican talking points. You know what. The regional NAACP came out and said we support what the local NAACP said Crime is endemic, crime is a problem. You're starting to see our friends on the left start fighting with each other because what's happening is going to be disproportionately impacting these same minority groups. Because when you have crime going 10%, it's up higher in those areas in our urban areas because that's what you do with when you're doing averages it's going to be worse in those same demographics. You're starting to see it come out. Because it's not sustainable. What's happening cannot continue. You're going to have so many things happen if we don't address it. Hopefully we're starting to see even the left question whether this is a problem and how to address it.

Speaker 1: 18:44

That case that you pointed out, that was in Oakland, california.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Yes, that's in the last two or three weeks where the NAACP in Oakland issued a letter to their local officials blasting them for rising crime.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Doing this from an outside lens, I tried to see both sides and some issues I far more on one side than the other. Really depends issue to issue. When I listen to different interviews, both that support cash bail and proponent or opponents of cash bail. I see things From the proponent side of this. You talk about the increase in crime in these communities and where they're trying to help out. They're also trying to help out people who have been arrested for nonviolent offenses, such as drug possession, charges of marijuana. From that going in the prison, coming out of it, you're much more likely to recommit a crime than you were otherwise going into the prison system and coming out. You have people being convicted for nonviolent drug offenses, then coming out and then having to then be more likely to recommit crimes in neighborhoods where they would otherwise, where they live, these lower socioeconomic neighborhoods. Perhaps that's also affecting the community as well. That's where I see the criminal justice reform coming from. Is we have mass incarceration in the country.

Speaker 2: 20:11

I think there's a part of the coalition that agrees with what you said, but there's a part of the coalition that just wants chaos. There's a part of the coalition that wants decriminalization. Look at what happened in California. They did a proposition 47 where, if it's staffed under $950, it went from a felony to a misdemeanor. But then you have prosecutors in your urban areas and we're not going to prosecute anymore. You have now rampant shoplifting in those areas. You now have businesses moving because they don't think they can provide a safe workspace for their employees.

Speaker 2: 20:44

I don't agree with that. I think it is a narrative, but I do not agree with it all. I think that same argument that you just made applies to a gang member. I mean, yeah, a gang member is going to be in a worse position when they go to prison. A career criminal is going to be in a worse position when they go to prison. Organized crime member is going to be in a worse position. But that's what prison's for. Those people are not going to come out and suddenly be productive citizens.

Speaker 2: 21:15

And so again, we're using one talking point to tie the hands of law enforcement and the criminal justice system so that we can't address the bad people, and that's the mistake we're making. And the reason why it's a mistake is, you know, I did a podcast with a social scientist who looked at this issue about our poor people really stuck in jail, and he said no. His conclusion of his study was the number one factor that affects people's languishing in jail is their criminal history, and you can also look at these charitable bail funds. They're getting in trouble because they were thinking, oh, there's all these people languishing in jail and they found they weren't. And so they're getting in trouble because they're bonding out the worst of the worst people people that occur, criminals that nobody will help and they're finding out that those are the people that are stuck in jail and they need to be stuck in jail.

Speaker 1: 22:09

No, I see her saying that and we are pulling with gang affiliate members, people who come in crimes of a certain degree. They come out and they're not productive members of society and which I think is kind of an issue of itself. But regardless, I'm more so speaking to and maybe some people are speaking this as well, I actually know they are. People are saying this. That's people who are. They do have a full time job. They're not bad people. They do have, say, functional relationships and they're a productive member of society. But maybe they also smoke weed and they get and there's certain places in the country where that's still criminalized and they get caught with that. They get arrested, they go to, they have to go bail. I mean they go to court and they get posted bail. They can't afford that bail. Now they're in the prison system. Now their life is turned upside down, they lose that job, they can't gain employment, all because of a simple drug charge, drug possession charge at that. Like those people exist.

Speaker 1: 23:02

I'm not speaking the fantasy here and I don't think that dismisses or goes against anything you say about the chaos that's occurring. I don't think that's an argument. What I put forward is oh, therefore we should have these not prosecuting approaches to theft or we're not going to prosecute if there's under theft under $950. Not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that people that on the other side, I think they have a certain point where the communities and certain people are being hurt by policies that shouldn't maybe be there to begin with and maybe this is their, maybe they're prosecuting it wrongly, as you're pointing to. It sounds like it, but some, tastefully, I kind of see where they're maybe approaching it.

Speaker 2: 23:43

I don't, okay. So let's make a couple of points here. I don't believe in our urban area they have time to prosecute small amounts of marijuana. I know in Harris County they don't. They give you a ticket and as long as you do a some type of program, you don't have to complete it, you just sign up for it. Your case gets dismissed. So I don't believe that that is happening in our urban areas, because they would say we don't have time for that. They're not prosecuting misdemeanors, so why would they be prosecuting marijuana?

Speaker 2: 24:08

Now I will also say maybe we need to have a discussion in our country about what is a crime, and maybe that should be one of the things we reevaluate. But this isn't a policy, this is a statute. In each state makes it up on mind about whether something is a crime, and so this is not a policy, this is a statute that has decided something as a crime. And then the last point I would make is let's just change this. Let's go to Portland. In Portland they've decriminalized all heavy drugs and they said oh, the money that we're going to save here we're going to put into programs and we're going to save a lot of people. Well, what's happened is the exact opposite. Nobody's getting saved, point. Oh, one percent in a given month will take the opportunity to go to treatment and they're having record numbers of overdoses every month. So I mean we're just doing a green light to kill yourself and it's.

Speaker 2: 25:07

The promise that was made has been completely broken. And I think what they said would happen has been proven to absolutely not be true. But the supporters are completely entrenched, think that it's a success. We should continue. I mean all this money they're spending on programs that nobody's using. I mean really, I mean this is a completely failure. And then let me make one last point, and I know it's. I said it was my last, but my last point was I read a book that said if we give up on drug crime, we're giving up on essentially 80 percent of crime, because so much crime is an offshoot from drugs. Whether you're coming theft so you can get money so you can go buy drugs, or you're doing smashing grabs for $20 a handful so that you can then go buy drugs or alcohol, so much crime in this country arises or is an offshoot of drug trade. If we give up on drugs, we're giving up on 80 percent of crime.

Speaker 1: 26:06

It's a lot to contend with, and you mentioned people being entrenched and I think that's an issue. I think that's a problem for all issues. People are entrenched on their side and sometimes you can't reach those people. I spoke to someone on the recent podcast where there's a just fund them out disagreements, one after the other, and it's hard to even have a conversation. So I mean I encounter that and you talk about Portland and there's a lot of controversy there on their drug reform policies and how people are actually flocking there to use drugs because of those policies and the efforts to help people in those situations aren't working. So I mean, I'm familiar with the failures there.

Speaker 2: 26:52

But there's not a willingness to acknowledge it's a failure. They just say we need more time. I mean there's. I mean you should be able to say, okay, this has been a failure, so we need to try something else. And that's where I criticize it, because you know, really, if you think about it, you just take a step back. You're committing the same mistakes that we made in the 60s. We're just going through a complete circle.

Speaker 2: 27:15

In the 60s we felt safe. We started being more forgiving on crime, crime laws. More people started getting released from jail, crimes started going up and as crimes started going up, there was a push to be more strict on our criminal laws. People fought it. You would even see in the 60s and 70s the same thing we're going through right now in New York, where you fight back and try to protect yourself and then you're prosecuted for doing something instead of the criminal. And you're seeing that now. That happened in the 60s and the 70s and what happened is we had a backlash and we got tough on crime. We had Reagan, who had a strong crime bill, and Bill Clinton continued it. And so if we're not careful, we're going to commit the same. We're going to just complete the same circle again because we didn't learn the lessons the first time.

Speaker 1: 28:06

I don't have a historical knowledge. So I mean I will just old?

Speaker 1: 28:12

No, no I mean, I'm just not as natural in that part, but I think I could. Couldn't someone say me and say, raise the point that in argue that the war on drugs have been historical failure as well, but yet we still continue certain policies that prosecute that war and we should instead adjust? So I almost see like this unwillingness on like both sides really comes to the table and be like all right, what you're doing isn't working for X, y and Z and then for, and then the other side of me, like what you're doing isn't working for because of A, b and C. So what, what points do each of us have that are good, like, are actually like? That's some. That's a value added.

Speaker 1: 28:54

And a question that you asked earlier rhetorically, which I think is good though that needs to be discussed is what is a crime? You know the same person. Can I go back to drug, nonviolent drug offenses, but even like, say, graffiti, which I do like I'm not a proponent of that at all. I think that's more serious than, honestly, just drug possession, but because it could damage a community. But point being is, you know, the person who just graffiti is like the sidewalk or a building could get stuck in with someone who's charged with, like murder, like how? My point being is how do we approach this issue of crime and public safety and law enforcement, and do it more holistically, acknowledging the challenges of the past and the failures, but also acknowledging the issues and failures of these contemporary policies that are coming from that?

Speaker 2: 29:42

Well, I think we have a divide in our country philosophically, because you have? I mean, look at Texas, outside of Harris County, they're strengthening their criminal justice laws. They're requiring the use of more the private industry, they're relying upon it more heavily to get people to court, and I would say that's working and so. And then you see our inner cities which are collapsing. Businesses are running from them. Their tax base is crumbling. I mean, look at San Francisco. Its commercial occupancy rate is 30%. I mean those buildings. The owners of those buildings will be defaulting in the next five years. If something does not change, then what happens to our big cities, our urban cities? And so these are things that nobody has thought of. And when we talk about how well we've been unfair in the past, I disagree with that.

Speaker 2: 30:36

When we were feeling very safe at this, before all this bell reform and criminal justice reform, there was a reason for that. We were putting criminals, who were putting bad guys, in jail, and so it was having an impact. And through those systems we had the hammer. You know, right now, if somebody in Portland is doing heavy drugs fentanyl they can get high on fentanyl for less than five dollars. There is no hammer to force them to go to drug rehab? There's no. And in Texas you either go to drug rehab or you're going to go to jail, All right, Well, and you're seeing the consequences. In Portland they say, no, I don't want to go, and so they end up overdosing. And so you spend your day saving the same people because you're bringing them back and then the next day you bring them back.

Speaker 2: 31:25

I mean, that's not a good working system and it's not creating, it's making public safety worse. There's some philosophies that talk about public safety. You know, the whole basis for communities coming together is public safety and if we don't have public safety, then we're going to have a breakdown of society and kind of go back to the old West where it's going to be vigilante justice. And you already see that at times where you have the public reacting and we have protests that sometimes get violent that's already happening right now. And until we get a handle as a community on these issues and we decide to protect society, protect our tax base, protect our community, it's going to continue to get worse. And I just disagree with the narrative that any of these changes have been good because of some history and they've had a positive impact on our urban cities. They've done nothing but make the same minority communities worse off today than they were before these discussions even started.

Speaker 1: 32:33

Now you've written articles before, numerous articles, but one specifically titled what Successful Barre Form Looks Like. Can you speak to that?

Speaker 2: 32:42

Sure. Well, you know, I think what successful bar reform looks like is something that is kind of like what Texas is based their changes on. We limit the use of simple release for violent offenses and so that they either get out through some type of system that has supervision. We need supervision, we need people to get to court and I think another part of successful bar reform is having a quick resolution of your criminal case. Have consequences for someone found guilty.

Speaker 2: 33:17

Because you know, we've always heard that time is not the friend of victims, because memories fade or worse. You know, if you go to court 10 times for your criminal case and you're the victim and 10 times he gets put off, well then you kind of get discouraged. Why go back? And then the first time when you don't go, they're going to dismiss the case and so it has. And then you know, like we mentioned earlier, it has to have an element of accountability. If you are giving a simple release and you fail to show up for court, there has to be consequences for that. If there's not, then there's no reason for you to show up again.

Speaker 2: 33:51

And you know I have a really bad example on this and I've kind of I really haven't told anybody this, but you know, during COVID I got really upset with this whole concept of criminal justice reform on steroids and no consequences. So I got a ticket for no expired registration on my car and I'm just like they are not, they can't arrest me for that, so I'm not going to do anything about it. So six months later I got another ticket for an expired registration and so this time I'm like I'll show them. So I just took the sticker off my car. I'm like they're not going to arrest me. And so a year later I get stopped for no registration expired. And then by then they had suspended my driver's license.

Speaker 2: 34:36

And so you know, I'm kind of of the opinion that our criminal laws are really just written for law-abiding citizens, not for the criminal element. Because at that point I was going to have to tell my wife or I was going to have to fix it. And I decided to go fix it and it cost me thousands of dollars to fix it, which it probably should have. But I also had to make a deal with the court because if they had, I just said I just want to pay this ticket. Well, if I paid a ticket for suspended driver's license, they would immediately suspend my driver's license again, and so it took a lot of time and energy, and, you know, I don't believe the criminal elements would spend any time doing that. They don't care.

Speaker 2: 35:16

And so I think the system is kind of made for us to be law-abiding citizens and the consequences are put on law-abiding citizens, and so I think that that the problem we have right now is we have no accountability, and we have this almost this city, within the city, in our urban areas of law violators, and we have a small group of people committing most of the crime, mm-hmm, and we're not doing anything to it, and we're not doing it in the name of what you said. Well, they're families and we're gonna disrupt their lives. No, this is how they make their living, and we're, in the name of justice, we're tying our hands so that we can't address those, the people in the crime city.

Speaker 1: 36:04

Yeah, I think that kind of speaks my point to that, because this is the most really true what you said, that at least with shoplifting you've seen this, that it's a small group of people who you know account for the plurality, polarity, if not majority, of these, like certain types of crimes, but by that same token we also have Mass incarceration rates that are unlike any other country. So that's, I guess, my point. They do. Do we really think now that All these people like it's almost a contradiction? That's again.

Speaker 2: 36:40

It's not. It's not, and I'll tell you why. Where does it word is where does the world send their drugs? The world sends the draw their drugs to the United States. So of course we're gonna have a disproportionate number of crime, and so, yeah, we've got a lot of people in jail. But what's happened in our inner cities? Families have failed, schools have failed them, they have drugs or rampant there. They have no job opportunities, which has been made worse over the last couple years because We've had riots that burned down business that haven't come back. We have shoplifting that's closed down businesses, we have business that don't feel safe, and so that's created more and more unemployment or non, no economic opportunity in those areas, and so you can't. I mean, those things have just made the system more and more difficult, and this is not a situation where, if there's an easy fix anymore.

Speaker 1: 37:30

Yeah, and I mean I was just verbatim eyes that you're correct. You have China, you know, employing drugs to Mexico, who are then employing them to the United States. You have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Opioid deaths. You know whether that be through the prescriptions. Will not prescriptions Excuse me through on whatever means they obtain them through. But yeah, and like Fennel, killing Americans thousands.

Speaker 1: 37:54

But say, the ones who don't like? You mentioned that why do we have all these people in jail? And that was like the response of you know, people are saying all their drugs here, the different countries, china being one them. Well, we're also, it's our choice, to incarcerate people for, say, possession of drugs, which we may just have a fundamental disagreement on. I don't know if that's the right approach. I would say, historically, that doesn't seem like the right approach. I don't think we're Overcoming the war and drugs. I don't think we're making much headway, no ends. I wouldn't maybe say my solution, that is these current cash bail Reform efforts. But why would say, is the current war on drugs and the way we prosecuted for the past 50, 40 years has not been successful and you could see that to this day?

Speaker 2: 38:42

That's a lot. What we were doing 20 years ago is a lot better than what's going on in Portland right now.

Speaker 1: 38:49

Yeah, we're talking we're talking about like two extremes.

Speaker 2: 38:52

You know, like I'm okay, I'm not but the problem with drugs and drug crimes and sending somebody to rehab. Rehab has such a low success rate so you've got to be committed to it, because if it has a 25 or less success rate then you're gonna have to get somebody to go to rehab multiple times and that's expensive. The reason why a lot of times you know so many people are in prisons because that's the cheapest option. And if you decide that's not what you want to do, I mean just turning them loose Okay, then what is the alternative?

Speaker 2: 39:27

I mean, if you have an answer to force somebody to go to drug rehab and they have the ability to say no, that's not an alternative. I so you say you have an answer for that. Tell me, I'd love to know it. You could, you could become a billionaire if you could answer that question.

Speaker 1: 39:41

Well, I think countries have demonstrated this, portugal being first and foremost. I think it's quite interesting one. They don't prosecute people for, say, drug possession, unless it's out in the open, such as Portland, so that kind of counters, that obnoxious, flagrant use, drug use, and what they do is so say, someone's down the street, you know, laying a blonde injecting himself with Whatever substance that may be. You're either present with two options rehab or jail or prison. And that's incentive because you're right, they get people don't have to show up to Rehab or don't have to put the effort in and maybe won't, but alternative is Five years in jail.

Speaker 2: 40:20

It's like maybe I should take this serious because that is the same thing I've been saying and that's the same. I would argue. That's what our criminal justice system did 20 years ago and heads until this Most recent criminal justice reform. That's what we were doing, and so it looks like to me. What you're proposing is a step back to what we were doing.

Speaker 1: 40:40

Maybe I just wasn't aware. I mean, to my knowledge I wasn't really maybe mainstream or widespread giving people options go rehab. But maybe the difference is that rehab wasn't subsidized because maybe it has to take more of a state funding to make sure people can Because it's on cam for the rehab or their family cam for it. Then you're really just catering a certain class.

Speaker 2: 41:00

So maybe that was a difference, okay to me. I just go back to what I told my daughter when she was in high school. She's like this isn't fair. I'm like life's not fair. I mean we've got to find something that works for society. We can't, we can't cripple society out of fairness.

Speaker 2: 41:15

I mean, there was a News nation did a town hall meeting with some of the mayors of our inner cities in the last three weeks and one of those mayors came up and said I am not a supporter and she's black. I'm not a supporter of Define the police and I'm not a supporter of Bell reform, because without accountability no one will show up for court. You have no alternative to the cash bell system that works anywhere near as well, and so until you have an alternative, then you can't do that. That's not an alternative, and that's the same thing I'm saying with what you're saying about drugs. Until you have an alternative that's anywhere near as successful as what we, what we should be doing and what we haven't been in the past, it's not an alternative. What Portland's doing is not an alternative.

Speaker 1: 42:04

Yeah, I would agree with that and I would just go back to what I mentioned, maybe what probably Portugal offers in other countries. And I mean I say the thing about like the class, because if you're offering this and you said this was offered in the past, we're like, oh, you have to pay for the rehab, like that's coming out of your pocketbook, like I Understand the pushback to that. But basically what you're saying is if you're of a certain class, you can not go to jail, but if you're of another class, a lower class, you're gonna go to jail because obviously you can't forward months of rehab. And my alternative would be why don't the government some capacity depending on them? Well, at least a test of it somewhere. I think it's worth it, offering the two being like you can go rehab that you don't have to pay for, but if you mess up, if you don't get appointments, if you're, say, any kind of behavioral issues, then you're gonna end up in jail. No, like, if you're gonna like try like escape or break out or do x, y and z, then you're gonna end up in jail. I think that is.

Speaker 1: 42:59

I Think that's part of the solution. And let me give you a quick like anacondas experiment like um I've heard before, which is not, I don't know, but experiment knows, operate before rats and it was no. They put these scientists, these researchers, put tied a string to the end of a rat's tail and then they wave the smell of cheese in in front of it and then, depending on the, they measure the resistance on that, say, tie on as a indicative Kind of representing how much the rat wants to cheese. And then in a separate experiment they did that same thing, only they now added in the odor of a cat behind it and you saw more resistance pulling forward.

Speaker 1: 43:51

And I think that's kind of like the thing with love, like possibly just life in general, is you have that positive incentive to kind of rebuild your life, not get screwed up from this mess up that you have, and then Simultaneously you have the alternative, that negative turn. If, if you don't do this, then you're gonna end up in jail, you're gonna really ruin your life. I think that is a much more say holistic approach to things. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, and when I hear policy solutions and when I hear things that just Site to extremes, I just come back to the saying or not the same. But my point Thing is that maybe we just need better minds on the problem.

Speaker 2: 44:29

Maybe we just need better minds solving solution you know let me take your solution and Propose a compromise to it Mm-hmm because we have to overlay on that that there's only a 25 or less percent success rate when somebody goes to rehab, and so what I would say is we give them a choice Go to jail or go to rehab. Mm-hmm, 75% or more the first time are gonna screw up. So under your proposal, then you would then send those people to prison and it would be a waste of money on them for the 75%. And so what you, what you have to play on that is, you have to send them to prison for a period of time a month, two months, six months, a year and then bring them back, offer them the same compromise go to rehab, go back to prison, and then, if they screw up again, they have to stay longer. It's all about accountability. What do they hate more, mm-hmm? Then not going to rehab, what do they hate more? The problem we have right now in multiple places in our country is you go to rehab, but there's no consequences if you don't, if you're not successful, there's no consequences if you fail, and then they just send you back to another place, but your criminal case doesn't go forward. That's not helping families.

Speaker 2: 45:51

I have a personal experience. Talk about personal experience. In 1989, in October, I have a sister who had a car accident. She broke every bone in her face. You could stick your finger through her mouth, out her eye socket, and so she started a 30 year addiction to prescription drugs. And you know 1889, 1889.

Speaker 2: 46:14

In 1989, I was a poor lawyer. I had just taken the bar exam. I didn't find out. I passed the bar exam till the next month, and so at that time the poor family's drug rehab was prison, and so I spent several years trying to get her in jail, get her where she could be helped and made stable. And so I would argue that one of the ramifications of the bell reform system in our urban areas, or the push, is that we're now taking away the poor men's option for drug rehab.

Speaker 2: 46:55

I mean, I think we're making it where. I mean, if they're getting arrested, they're high on drugs, they're getting released within hours. We're not helping them. We're not helping them at all, we're not helping their families and those families are gonna abandon them, and abandon them quickly.

Speaker 2: 47:08

My sister, I could not get her arrested because she, even though she had a brain injury, she still was pretty smart. It wasn't until the end of her life, when her brain injury progressed, that I was able to get control over her Became. Her guardian got her in an assisted living facility where they managed her 10 medications that she took a day and the end of her life was probably some of the best parts of her life for the last 30 years. And we're making these arguments, but I think we're poor versus rich. I mean the poor. They just want the same thing. They want their family members to have the opportunity to beat drugs wherever it is and become productive citizens. And when we make these blanket arguments we say, oh, they should be able to. Just, we're hurting families and the poor families are getting hurt worse than anyone else.

Speaker 1: 48:03

Yeah, I wouldn't argue with anything you said I thought was an interesting compromise too and I appreciate you sharing that story because it must be difficult. But yeah, I think that's interesting compromise and I see what you're saying and why that would be the case, so I really appreciate it. Yeah, and there's something I wanted to ask you too I would kind of like wrap up which is someone who doesn't know much about this issue. I mean, I just started recently trying to learn a little more from what you sent over to me and doing a little independent research. But say, someone who just listened to this conversation and now they're a little interested, what would you say they should take a look at or take a read over or listen to to become more informed on the issue? Holistically, no kind of what the other side says, what you're saying and the results.

Speaker 2: 48:59

You know, what I would say is a good starting point is our website called pbtxcom, which is the professional bonds on the Texas. I'm a member of the board of directors, I'm on their legislative team, but we have a blog where we highlight stories in the news. But we also have, under the resources tab, we have this page called Bail 101, which is intended to be kind of like a subject matter index and overview of bail issues and also as the resource so you can educate yourself. And then we also have a podcast called the Bail Post, and on any, if you go to our blog as well, any post on about our podcast has at the bottom of it a link to a subject matter index of all of our podcasts. So you know we have like 40 episodes now, and so we have a page that organizes them by subject.

Speaker 2: 49:45

So where we're talking about counties that have a specific issue, where we're talking about, hey, what's the New Jersey plan? Cause we had that in our legislature, so we have a whole episode about what the New Jersey plan is, what are charitable bail funds we have an episode on that, and on and on and on. So I think those are good places for research. We also do updates on important cases. So there's a case pending at the US Supreme Court right now on a petition for cert called Dave's versus Dallas County. The petition was filed like a month and a half ago and the reply or the response is due September one and we did a podcast about what the date case, what the court of appeals ruled was, what the court of appeals ruling entailed, and so we'll continue to follow that all the way through the Supreme Court and see if they grant cert or if they deny cert.

Speaker 1: 50:34

And what's the name of that website? Slash blog post.

Speaker 2: 50:39

So the website is pbtxcom. We have on our resources tab we have a bail 101. And then our podcast is called thebellpostcom. Gotcha, thank you, or you can find it at thebellpostcom it's called thebellpost.

Speaker 1: 50:53

And is there anything throughout this conversation that you wished? I asked you that I didn't that you like to speak on.

Speaker 2: 51:01

Are you sure you're not an attorney in a deposition? Is it making the joke? This is a complex issue and it's so easy now to just give a bad intent to anyone on the other side in opposing you. So it's always nice and it's always good to have an intelligent conversation, even on issues you don't agree with. I've been in forums where I've thought I've made a really good, intelligent point. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. But somebody stands up and their response is don't listen to Ken, he's racist. Don't listen to Ken, he has a different identity than you. And so we know you and I know that when somebody says that, they're really saying it because they don't have a response and so they're just taking the shortcut. And so it's always good when we have a intelligent conversation and we're not calling each other names. When we're addressing points, we're making suggestions, we're trying to find compromise, and so I thank you for that for today.

Speaker 1: 51:57

For sure. No, thank you for your time. I actually recently ended this episode earlier, because of you know someone making these racial insinuations and I don't respond to that. That's not something that. I have any interest in, and I find it really disgusting when people do that. So yeah, thank you again for your time and I really appreciate the insight shared. I think it was very thought provoking and that's well, I'll leave it.

Speaker 2: 52:22

Well, thank you. If you could call my daughter and tell her that I'm thought provoking, I would probably I'll win my use of money.

Speaker 1: 52:30

I'll follow up on you for that. So thank you again, ken. Thank you for your time, wow.