Published Articles by R.E. "Scott" Maclean III

Commercial Surety, the cause of it's own demise? Published on www.PursuitMag.com

I want to preface this discussion with he fact that I am a Surety Bondsman as well as a Professional Property Bondsman, and for the sake of this discussion, will lump both categories into the same bucket.

From a local perspective, we have 182 licensed Bondsman in the 7th Circuit of Maryland, which is made up of 4 counties. This circuit allows both Property and Surety Bonds to be posted. There is an association, The Greater Washington Bail Bond Association, which is made up of both categories of Bondsmen and has 13 members on it's roles, with 6 members actively funding the organization. The efforts to grow this association has met with negative results. The Bondsmen that do not choose to join reap the rewards of the efforts of this association, without the financial responsibility and directorial input. The association has retained a lobbyist, Ira Cooke, who actually wrote the bail law in Maryland in the early 70's. There is no better resource for information or rebuttal before the state legislature then he.

This discussion was prompted by discussions on other industry related websites that complain of irresponsible Bondsmen, lack of industry integrity, no cohesiveness etc. as it relates to our industry and it is all true. We are now facing the use of our own tax dollars being used to attack and compete with this industry in the form of Pre-Trial Release.

http://www.pretrial.org/PretrialServices/HistoryOfPretrialRelease/P...

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/courts/pretrial/research-meetin...

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/...

As an industry, we need to collectively unite, discard the racial boundaries, the condescending attitudes, the hustle and slickery and return to an industry of business people with standards of ethics and behaviors. We need to step up and take responsibility for our industry and correct the members that have gone astray, join our local associations, financially support them and save or jobs. If we do not unite we will fail, and we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.

as posted on www.pursuitmag.com

New Opportunities to Market Bail Enforcement Services

Alternative methods of release of a defendant from incarceration are presenting new opportunities for Bail Enforcement Agents. Defendants can be released in any of the following manners:

Surety Bond, posted by a bail bondsman
100% Cash Bond, posted by an indemnitor
10% Cash Bond, posted by an indemnitor
Property Bond, posted by a Bail Bondsman
Property Bond, posted by an indemnitor
Pre-Trial Release, court supervised
Home Detention, court supervised
Home Detention, monitored by a private agency
Personal Bond

As we all know, if a Property (or Professional) Bondsman posts a bond that forfeits, that is an income opportunity for us as Bail Enforcement Agents. With the changes in the industry nationwide, the intelligent Bail Enforcement Agent will recognize a new opportunity.

When a private citizen posts a bond with a Bail Bondsman, they are responsible to the Bondsman for any and all expenses incurred as a result of forfeiture.  Conversely, if a private citizen posts a bond to the court they are now in effect a Bail Bondsman. They have all of the rights of a bondsman and share the liability as well. Should the defendant not appear in court, the indemnitor is responsible to the court to present the defendant or the balance of the bond.

That is where we come in!

When the indemnitor can’t talk Johnny Defendant into voluntarily turning himself in, or she can’t find him, she calls us! But wait…she doesn’t know about us!

We must target our marketing to the Civilian Bondsman.

Take advantage of your local cable company and produce an infomercial, as a PSA of course! PSA’s are an industry term for Public Service Announcements, and they are required to provide them! They have trouble thinking up PSA’s to produce, so solve their problem! Coupon packet mailers work well for marketing to this targeted market. Identify the pain, educate, offer a solution, and provide a call to action!

Lastly, check with your local authorities to see if there are private companies offering home detention services. I am quite sure that they are very protective of their charges, as well as their security record. Wouldn’t they like your card in their Rolodex? Calling you to clear up their problem or to perform spot checks for them as quality control enhances their business.

Think out of the box!  There is plenty of business out there for the professional that markets, dresses and acts accordingly.

Scott MacLean is the owner of Chesapeake Bail Bonds and Chesapeake Group Investigations, Inc., serving Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia from La Plata, Maryland.  The staff at Pursuit Magazine cannot possibly say enough good things about this professional investigator, bondsman and fugitive recovery agent.

The Judiciary is Endangering the Citizenry

For some reason, as of the last 6 months, the climate, culture and motivation for setting commercial surety bail bonds by Court Commissioners in the 7th Circuit of Southern Maryland has changed to the detriment of the citizens.

Criminal actions that used to result in arrest warrants, now result in criminal summons. Individuals that were out on bond had family members responsible for them. Now, they are releasing people with no known address, with felony charges, on personal recognizance.

Believe it or not, there are some people that bondsman do not want to take responsibility for. This is because we take the collect calls from the jail and talk to their family. We would never presume to know a defendant more than their family knows them, simply from a 3 minute collect call from the jail. The family either wants to work with us to get their loved one released or they don't. When they don't, the reasons are many. He failed to appear before when I signed for him, He is on drugs and they are going to kill him if he doesn't stop, at least if he is in jail, we will get some sleep this week, since we won't have to worry if he is okay etc.Then the defendant is released on personal recognizance (ROR) and the family call us upset when they learn of the defendant's release. We have to explain to them that the Commissioner released him, we did not post bond for him. 

The bigger picture is the cost vs. benefit ratio of the Court's new position. When we are known as being tough on crime, as the Charles County Courts once were, the word on the street was not to mess around down there, you will go to jail. Now, it is the opposite, and it is a joke to the repeat offenders. Instead of having a viable deterrent to crime, we have people laughing at how they got over on this Commissioner or that Judge and got released. The end result is the citizens have to pay, and pay dearly we will.

I have a stake in this game, as I run a Bail Bond Business in Southern Maryland. I make money getting people out of jail, and I want to continue doing so. But be also sure that my responsibility to the courts is very serious. If I bond you out and you miss court, I will bring you back, at no cost to the taxpayers. This is not the case when defendants with many failure to appears are released with no current address and or violent criminal histories. You the tax payer pay for their recovery when they fail to appear. Don't take my word for it, see for yourself. There is a link on my links page that will allow you to see what happpens to people when they get arrested, You will also see longer response times from the police department due to the increased work load, and that also endangers the citizens at no fault of the police department.

Like a chesss game, the Judiciary has to look far enough ahead to see the true and actual long term costs of their current attitude, and also at who will have to pay for it.

R.E. "Scott" Maclean III, Bail bondsman

MD Bail System Proposed Revisions

Unintended Consequences

There has been an attempt to clean up the commercial bail industry in Maryland, a much needed proposition. The approach to achieve this goal has fallen short of the mark and produced unintended consequences.  This treatise will not critique the path of intended change, but will point out the results of this effort.

The first premise is that the citizens of Maryland deserve to be protected by the law enforcement and judiciary processes that their tax dollars pay for. The second premise is the State of Maryland needs a uniform and consistent system for pre-trial release, statewide. The third premise is that the judicial process needs to be a deterrent to crime to be effective. The last premise is the judicial process needs to be stream lined to be more cost effective and efficient.

The first rule of successful management is to listen to your employees. They are the source of your best ideas. They are also the source your consultants use when you hire them to identify your problems. Listening costs nothing. The second rule is to observe what does work elsewhere and mirror it, with minor changes to easily adapt to your current system. The third rule is to Eagle Out; pull back to a bird’s eye view to see the big picture. Often times we are so close to the issue, we can’t see what is wrong to correct it.

The recent changes in the bond posting procedures, and resulting additional requirements, have caused a serious morale problem with the Court Commissioners. Many are not state employees, but contract employees, without the benefits shared by state employees performing the same tasks. Their pay is not commensurate with the required education level, 24 hour schedules, or potentially hostile environment they are required to work in. This has resulted in a high turn over of Commissioners, resulting in inefficiencies of the office due to understaffing and training requirements.

These changes have affected the Bail Bondsmen, The Private Citizens and the local Sheriff’s Departments. As a result of the increased processes to post bail as a citizen or a professional, there has been a drastic increase in defendants released on recognizance. (Note that a Commissioner that releases a defendant on recognizance only sees the defendant one time, as opposed to requiring bail, 10% or 100% surety, where the Commissioner would have to perform three separate tasks) The Sheriff’s Departments are seeing an increase in Criminal Summons issued as opposed to arrest warrants, that the Departments feel are necessary to maintain the peace and safety of the citizenry.  This negatively affects the morale and attitude of their officers, as they feel the Commissioners do not understand the gravity of some situations. When the Commissioners are provided with data stating that the Criminal Summons issued by them is not servable, due to incomplete, incorrect or no longer valid information, it is returned to them. The Sheriff’s Department would like to see a warrant issued that can be posted in Miles or NCIC, to increase the contact ratio with the defendant as opposed to a Criminal Summons in their local system only.  

Failure to appear rate on ROR bonds is 40% per the Sheriff’s Department interviewed and results in an unnecessary strain on their budget. To be fair, this same department estimated failure to appear rates on subjects that had posted bonds at 20%.  The department was quick to retort that if on a Surety Bond, the bondsmen have an excellent record of making their own arrests, resulting in the serving of additional warrants the bondsman is not responsible for. If the defendant absconds on a bond that is a 10% to the court bond, they have no Indemnitor’s information to assist in the arrest, no phone numbers, just a warrant.

The bail system in Maryland needs to be consistent, and the District and Circuit Court databases need to communicate with each other.  The cleanest and most efficient means to accomplish this is to replicate the 7^th Judicial Circuit system throughout the state. The 1% bail fee collected by each circuit, that far exceeds the cost to administer the current program, can be utilized to fund the computer update. This system will be self sufficient and self sustaining, and will not require additional funds to initiate or maintain it.

R.E. "Scott" MacLean III, written for presentation to a Commercial Bail Association

Bail Enforcement and the Community

You’re a regular guy; you go to work, raise your kids and pay your taxes. Your wife is the same way, splitting whatever free time you have carrying the kids to Soccer or Cheerleading, whoever gets home first makes the dinner. This repeats all week long with no thought of the men and women that toil at night cleaning up the streets.

You don’t know about these Bail Enforcement types. Dog the Bounty Hunter, movies on cable late at night, shows on the Discovery Channel is as close as you are going to get. Romantic, dangerous, maybe if I was 20 years younger I would give it a shot. But not now, I have too much at risk. Gathering around the office coffee pot, your co-workers discuss what they saw the night before. Man I didn’t now that they could do that, is it legal?

The answer is yes and no. Laws vary state to state and what is shown on television is more entertainment than reality, despite how it is marketed. Are Bail Enforcement Agents better than Police Officers? I don’t think that they are comparable. Law Enforcement Officers are dispatched to the scene of a complaint or crime. The investigation is passed on to Detectives or Senior Officers, and they do their respective jobs until some case with a higher priority takes their attention. Bail Enforcement Agents will stay on an individual case until it is closed by re-arrest, because that is the only way that they get paid. Both groups use similar skill sets, yet apply them differently. There are also laws that hinder the LEO but do not affect the BEA, such as those regarding search and seizure.  

Bail Bondsmen make a financially guaranteed promise to the court to ensure that the defendant that they bailed out of jail comes to all of their respective appearances. They monitor the defendants to protect their financial risk. Should the defendant fail to appear, the Bondsman or his Agent will hunt down the fugitive, re-arrest them and surrender them to the respective jail. If they fail to find the defendant, the Bondsman has to pay the court the full bail amount. The time to find the defendant varies from state to state. This working relationship with the legal system results in the recovery of fugitives quietly, under the radar, beyond the view of a news camera and outside the scope of newspaper reporters. The most prolific Bail Enforcement Agents shun any type of attention from these mediums. Their success is dependant on anonymity. They have embraced the covert nature of this business. Nobody trumpets their successes, yet everyone reads about their failures. As in anything else, bad news beats you home every time.

I could proffer numerous explanations and statistics that may  appear as a defensive posture. Law enforcement outnumbers Bail Enforcement Agents exponentially, and in sync with the disparity is the number of complaints filed against both groups. What is interesting is the disparity of arrest numbers, with Bail Enforcement making in excess of 85% of all arrests made. Don’t take my word for this fact, read the congressional testimony from Asa Hutchins committee. Statistically, Bail Enforcement Agents have far less incidents pre or post arrest than Law Enforcement Officers do, as it relates to numbers of arrests. It should also be noted that these arrests are after an investigation, as opposed to traffic stops and warrant checks. This is not to demean what is accomplished by LEO, because they do a great job. This is to credit a group of people where it is long over due, Bail Enforcement Agents.

Scott MacLean

Scott MacLean is an accomplished Bail Enforcement Agent, Professional Bail Bondsman and Licensed Private Investigator. He has been the subject of numerous articles about his accomplishments and the commercial bail industry. He has been a frequent poster on Bail Industry groups and is an educator and public speaker on Bail Industry issues. He is also the head instructor for The National Association of Bail Enforcement Agents, Falls Church, VA.

Comparison and Contrast of Current and Proposed Pre-Trial Release Methodology

This system has evolved into a commercial bail activity, with the guarantor or responsible party being the citizens. The resulting drain on the budgets of local law enforcement agencies has rendered them crippled in their efforts to recover fugitives. The law enforcement agencies are left with thousands of un-served warrants and their respective reputations in the community stripped of the honor that they once held. Pre-trial services were designed to give the court more accurate information about defendants, their previous criminal history, ties to the community, work history and current home life conditions. The system is also designed to relieve the prison populations of indigents unable to raise funds to post a cash or surety bail.

An individual that fails to appear (FTA) for his court date encumbers the system with the investigation costs, additional incarceration time when captured, as well as the costs to adjudicate the charges again. The costs not accounted for are the preparation of the defense council, the prosecution team and the handlers of the defendant multiple times for the same criminal charges. Additionally, the community and its resulting tax base suffers as the comfort zone of the citizens diminishes in direct relation to the loss of safety felt by an unprotected community as fugitives run loose with no fear of punishment from the judiciary. The community turns over, with the affluent leaving to seek safer more conservative values, the poorer having to stay behind and suffer. Their suffering is a direct result of a system designed to assist them. I suggest that the thought process and the evolution of Pre-Trial Release are inherently flawed.

Pre-trial Release has evolved into a system where any defendant, no matter the severity of accusation, can seek and achieve release from incarceration. The number of FTA’S a defendant has, the progressive nature and level of crimes allegedly perpetrated, the ever increasing list of victims in fear seems to have no bearing on their decision. The defendants learn from each encounter with law enforcement and the court system. If there is no penalty for ones actions or behaviors, there exists no deterrent to crime. The system becomes a game, a game played by masters of manipulation, and we the citizens lose every time.

In a society where we as parents can be severely punished for disciplining our children, in a valiant effort to never have them incarcerated in the first place, we are left to the discipline of the courts. The same courts teach them that there are minimal or no penalties for their actions. The result is a lawless and dangerous society, one not fit to live in, and the playground of the criminal who respects no laws or individuals.

This system that has already failed by even the most liberal measure, now is pushing for increased exposure to our defendants. Requesting bonds under $5,000.00 be mandatory as ten percent to the court, with no system for collecting on forfeitures or fugitives is absurd. Lawyers posting their own bonds for their clients, using the reimbursement of the bond as payment for services after completion of the case is equally oppressive. An individual with a paid criminal attorney deserves every opportunity under the law. When this attorney represents his/her client in a bail review, he/she is now biased. Instead of asking for release on recognizance (ROR), they ask for a reasonable bail, one that will leave them with sufficient funds when the trial is over. This represents a serious conflict of interest, as well as one that takes advantage of a defendant and their respective families.

To really expose the flaws of this system, any individual that posts a cash bond to the court, now accepts and is empowered by all the rights of a bondsman. That means that they can re-arrest their charge in the event that they miss court, in order to seek the remedies due them as a result of the bail contract, written or verbal. The resulting efforts to redeem themselves without the training and expertise of a Professional or Surety Bondsman can result in placing communities in harms way. Imagine the new boyfriend seeking to assist his girlfriend after she bonded out a previous boyfriend on a cash bond. I don’t want him coming to my door by mistake, kicking it in and forcing me to defend my family and property, do you?

Let the Bondsmen do their job, quietly and professionally. So what if an individual has to stay in jail because he or she can’t raise bond. Let that be a deterrent to crime not an excuse to change a system that works. Maybe they can’t raise bond because their own family is tired of their shenanigans, and wants them to stay there and learn a lesson. Who is better to make that decision then the family? Do we presume to know better then them as a result of a single interview? I think not. Those that can’t raise bail and don’t represent a flight risk can be ROR’d by a judge in a bail review, another system already in place.

I am a Professional Surety Bondsman, a Licensed Private Investigator, a DC-CJA Investigator and a Bail Enforcement Agent. I have spent years training and being trained to perform my job with professionalism, integrity and compassion. I am a recognized expert in my field with a National reputation, I have been written about on CNN and other publications. I am not alone. With close to 3000 fugitive arrests in 34 states, my team and I have been responsible for the service of over 4000 warrants, at NO COST to you, the American taxpayer.

 If it is not broken, don’t fix it!

R.E.”Scott” MacLean III

Latest Project/Study

Currently working on an exhaustive study of warrants issued in the 7th Circuit and their origination to determine a cause and effect relationship. The Judiciary seems to complete reports with no substantive data to support their findings and we are going to show them how it is supposed to be done. Facts are facts and we will produce an unbiased report based on scientific principles, to include the supporting data, that will allow an interested individual to track it backwards and forwards and arrive at the same conclusion. Stay tuned!

Scott