Private bail bond company "touts job potential" in WI, denies ALEC involvement through ALEC member

[highplainsdem]

Here we go again -- more evidence of ALEC meddling, denied by an ALEC member:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/124142324.html

Bail group touts job potential
By Don Walker of the Journal Sentinel
June 18, 2011


Gov. Scott Walker promised he would create more jobs in Wisconsin.

The American Bail Coalition says it can help, with a privately run bail bonds system it says will create 1,500 jobs.

Last week, the budget the Senate handed Walker included a provision that would set up a system of bail bondsmen in Wisconsin. It was inserted in the budget over the objections of law enforcement and the state's chief judges, who feel the current system is better.

-snip-

"Anytime you place profit-driven organizations in control of an individual's liberty, corruption must be a major concern," wrote Storck (John R. Storck, chief judge of the 6th Judicial District and chair of the Committee of Chief Judges in Wisconsin). "The bail system unfairly penalizes low-income defendants who can't afford the unrefundable fee. It subverts the justice system, because defendants who can afford to buy their freedom - even those that may pose a relatively greater risk - are free to go at a much lower cost than under the current system."

-snip-

Please read the full article at the link. The executive director of the American Bail Coalition is a private sector member of ALEC. He's trying to deny ALEC's role in this legislation, though -- as the article points out -- ALEC promotes the private bail industry.

With very harmful consequences, as NPR pointed out.

See reply 29 in the long compilation topic on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which links to a separate DU topic about the American Bail Coalition having two of its members on ALEC's Private Enterprise Board (other corporations have only one member on that board). That topic also discusses and links to an NPR story -- Bail Burden Keeps U.S. Jails Stuffed With Inmates -- the first of three stories on the harm this industry does. That story has a sidebar on bail bonds and state laws that discusses ALEC's role in creating this disastrous situation.

Which it now wants to spread to Wisconsin...

[Snoutport]

1. kr important stuff!

[highplainsdem]

2. Thanks, Snoutport!

:hi: