A PLASTIC CARD TO GET OUT OF JAIL

Santa Clara County to install machine that bypasses
bondsmen

Ah, modern life. You have your ATM kiosks, your ticket kiosks, your espresso
kiosks and -- in the heart of Silicon Valley -- your bail-yourself-out
kiosk.

Starting Wednesday, Santa Clara County will be the first major jail in the
country with a bail-dispensing machine.

With a swipe of a credit card, eligible defendants will be able to get out
of the clink within moments of being booked instead of waiting hours or even
days for a relative or bail bondsman to arrive with the necessary cash. Only
one other place in the nation so far -- tiny San Luis Obispo County -- has
installed such convenience machines. But the private company that sells the
kiosks expects them to become as ubiquitous as ATMs.

Already bail bondsmen, whose $10-billion national monopoly is threatened,
say the service is illegal and contains hidden costs to consumers. But Santa
Clara County officials defend the bail kiosk, saying that eliminating jail
stays will reduce taxpayer costs and jail overcrowding. It costs taxpayers
$62 to keep an inmate overnight in jail.

``It's using the newest technology, and we are the technological valley,''
said Supervisor Pete McHugh, adding that the people who will be released
after using the machine have been charged with, not convicted of, a crime.

Anyone who has been charged with a crime that carries bail may use the
kiosk. But the heaviest use is expected to be from those arrested for
relatively minor crimes with bails under $5,000 -- well within the limit
many people carry on their credit cards. Those crimes include vandalism,
assault, drunken driving and drug possession.

On top of the bail amount, the arrestee will pay a 10 percent surcharge to
the private company that operates the kiosk -- the same fee charged by bail
bondsmen. But local bail bond agents say using the kiosk also carries hidden
costs in the form of steep cash-advance fees and interest charges by credit
card companies.

For example, a defendant arrested on a felony drug possession charge must
post $5,000 bail to be released before trial.

The defendant, of course, may put up the cash himself, in which case no fee
is charged. Defendants always get the basic bail amount back from the county
once the case is resolved -- as long as they appear at every scheduled court
hearing. But if the defendant uses a bail bond agent or the kiosk, he pays a
$500, non-refundable fee to either the agent or to Judicial Solutions Inc.,
the kiosk company.

Inmate welfare fund

Unlike the bail agent, the kiosk company pays 20 percent of the 10 percent
surcharge -- which in this case is $100 -- to the county's inmate welfare
fund. The fund pays for vocational training and other inmate services. If
the defendant uses a credit card at the kiosk, he may also have to pay a
cash-advance charge of up to 3 percent on the $5,500 to the credit card
company, plus the customary monthly interest on the loan.

The bail industry's chief complaint about the kiosk, however, is that it
poses unfair competition and is illegal because it is not licensed by the
state. Bail bond agents, on the other hand, are licensed by the state
Department of Insurance and have to comply with strict state regulations.

``The first time I heard about this was last week, and I was
flabbergasted,'' said Ted Wallace, president of the Santa Clara County
Professional Bail Association and a member of the board of directors of the
California Bail Agents Association. ``We're definitely investigating our
legal options.'' Judicial Solutions contends it does not need a license
because it is not fronting money to defendants, just enabling them to tap
into their own credit lines.

``It's a fairly political product because the bail industry has had it to
themselves for 240 years,'' said John Bergmann, president of Judicial
Solutions. ``But we're definitely not bailing out O.J. Simpson; we're taking
the crumbs.''

Bail bond agents admit they sometimes ignore the defendants most likely to
use the kiosk because the fees involved are so small. ``A couple of bail
agents I talked to said, `Great, I won't have to get up at 3 a.m. to post a
$500 bail,' '' said Cherie Williams, a manager with the county Department of
Correction.

But Frank Rivera, an agent with Aladdin Bail Bonds, said the kiosk will cut
into his profits.

`That's how I pay my bills'

``There's a lot of people who don't write those small bails, but that's how
I pay my bills and feed my children,'' he said. Wallace said if the kiosk
turns out to be legal, the county should limit its use to defendants with
bails of $1,000 or less out of fairness to the bail agents who assume the
risk for most of the bail set by the county. Under its five-year contract
with Judicial Solutions, the county may cancel the kiosk without incurring a
penalty.

San Luis Obispo, whose jail population of 500 inmates is about one-tenth the
size of Santa Clara County's, has had a kiosk for four months. It's used
mostly to post small bail amounts, a jail spokesman said. Bail bond agents
there also are upset about it, said Todd Dolezal, an agent with San Luis
Bail Bonds.

``We're prohibited by state law from advertising in the jails, yet there is
this kiosk in the lobby that every 15 minutes or so announces that you can
use it to post bail,'' Dolezal complained.

Paying online

Right now, the bail kiosk operates like a simple ATM. But Bergmann said the
device, which is manufactured by Siemens Corp., will eventually be hooked to
the Internet. Then, a defendant whose father is in Iowa, for example, will
be able to charge his son's bail online without having to visit the jail.
``We expect the growth in its use to be almost geometric,'' Bergmann said.

Checked-by: Don Beck