By Katie Ross-Biorn Licensed Bail Bondsman · Colorado Statewide · 20+ Years in the Industry · Rossbailbonds.com
I have been a licensed bail bondsman for over twenty years, writing bonds all over the state of Colorado. Every single day, I am in communication with defendants, their families, their friends, their attorneys, and the courts. I know the clerks. I know the judges. I understand how cases move, what families are going through, and what actually motivates someone to show up when their court date arrives. I am, by almost any definition, someone with a front-row seat to how the pretrial system works in the real world.
So I want to ask a genuine question: when bail reform gets debated at the statehouse, when advocacy groups hold press conferences, when news stories run about the justice system — why aren't bondsmen being asked? We are the ones on the phone with families at midnight. We are the bridge between the court system and the people navigating it. We work alongside judges, DAs, and defense attorneys daily. And yet, somewhere along the way, the bail bondsman became the villain in this story — the symbol of a system that needs to be dismantled — rather than a knowledgeable voice who might actually help shape something better.
I don't think that's fair, and I don't think it serves the people this debate is supposed to be about. So here is my perspective — twenty years of it — offered not to defend an industry, but to make sure the conversation is built on a complete picture.
What the Constitution Actually Says — And What Surety Bond Actually Costs
It helps to start with the foundation. The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits excessive bail. Not the absence of bail options — excessive bail. The Founders understood that the right to seek release before trial was a cornerstone of individual liberty, and they built that protection directly into the Bill of Rights. That history matters, because it tells us something important: the goal was never to eliminate bail. It was to ensure bail remained fair and accessible.
Here's where I'd push back on the "bail is excessive" argument directly: a surety bond through a licensed bondsman is not the same as paying the full bail amount. A defendant's family typically pays a percentage of the bond — often 15% — as the bondsman's fee. In return, the bondsman secures the entire bond amount with the court. That means a family can get their loved one home by paying a fraction of what the judge set, while the full financial guarantee to the court is in place. That is not an excessive burden — that is a system specifically designed to make release accessible while still maintaining accountability. It's worth asking: is that actually more expensive than the alternative?
Consider what a PR bond with mandatory pretrial supervision actually costs a defendant over the life of a case — UA screenings, mandatory classes, missed work for check-in appointments, potentially months or over a year of those conditions before any verdict is reached. When you add it all up, a family who posts a surety bond knows exactly what they're signing up for upfront. The cost is defined, the process is clear, and the supervision ends when the case resolves. With pretrial release, the financial and logistical burden accumulates quietly over time, often costing far more than anyone anticipated when the judge said "released."
A well-functioning bail system offers a genuine menu of options. Cash bail. Property bond. Surety bond through a licensed bondsman. Each of these creates a layer of accountability — the defendant has something at stake, their family has something at stake, and the bondsman has something at stake. That shared investment is what motivates everyone involved to make sure the defendant actually appears in court. It's not a punishment. It's a structure that protects the integrity of the legal process for everyone — including the defendant.
Where Reform Raises Valid Questions
To be fair, some of the concerns driving the bail reform conversation are worth taking seriously. Pretrial detention — sitting in jail while awaiting trial — can cost people their jobs, their housing, and time with their families. It can create pressure to accept plea deals simply to get out, even for people who might otherwise fight their case. These are real consequences, and they deserve thoughtful attention from everyone involved in the justice system, including bondsmen like me.
Not every defendant poses a meaningful flight risk, and the goal should always be to match the level of supervision to the actual risk involved. That's a principle I support wholeheartedly. Where I part ways with some reform proposals is in how that goal gets pursued — because the alternatives being put forward have created their own set of serious problems.
What's Happened in States That Eliminated Cash Bail
New Jersey moved away from cash bail in 2017. Illinois followed. New York enacted sweeping reforms that were subsequently scaled back multiple times in response to rising failure-to-appear rates and significant public concern. Colorado has been watching these outcomes closely, and they offer important lessons. When financial accountability is removed from the equation entirely, a meaningful portion of defendants simply do not return to court. Not a majority — but enough to create real consequences for victims, witnesses, and the functioning of the court system as a whole.
The question has never been whether the bail system is perfect. It isn't. The question is what accountability looks like when you replace it — and that answer matters enormously.
Understanding PR Bonds — And Their Limits
Personal recognizance bonds — commonly called PR bonds — allow a defendant to be released on their own promise to appear, without posting any financial security. They have an appropriate and important role in the system. A true first-time offender facing a minor charge, with no other open cases and genuine ties to the community, may be an excellent candidate for a PR bond. That's exactly the population they were designed to serve.
What's at stake when PR bonds are granted too broadly isn't just a procedural issue — it's a community safety issue. When defendants with prior failures to appear, open cases, or serious charges are released with no financial accountability attached, the system loses one of its most reliable tools for ensuring they return to court. Victims are waiting for resolution. Witnesses have obligations. Communities deserve to know that people facing charges will actually show up to answer for them. A promise to appear carries real weight when something is on the line. When nothing is on the line, the promise is only as strong as the individual's motivation on any given day — and that is not a foundation a community's safety should rest on.
The Real Cost of Pretrial Release Programs
Pretrial release programs are often presented as a cost-effective, compassionate alternative to the bail system. What many people don't realize — including defendants themselves — is that pretrial supervision is not something a defendant chooses. When a judge grants a PR bond, pretrial supervision is frequently attached to it as a mandatory court-ordered condition. The defendant doesn't opt in. They are placed on it by the court.
From a taxpayer standpoint, these programs require significant public funding. Staff, office space, drug testing facilities, case management technology, and supervision infrastructure are all publicly financed. A licensed bail bondsman provides very similar court-appearance accountability — staying in contact with defendants, tracking court dates, working with families — and does so at no cost to the public. The bondsman's fee is paid by the defendant's family, not the taxpayer.
From the defendant's perspective, being placed on pretrial supervision is not simply freedom until a court date arrives. These are court-ordered conditions that run for the entire duration of the case — which in Colorado can span six months, a year, or longer depending on the complexity of the charges. During that time, defendants are required to submit to regular urinalysis screenings, complete mandatory classes, and attend in-person check-ins with their case manager. All of this is imposed before any verdict has been reached and before any conviction has occurred.
Those screenings carry costs. Those classes carry costs. And each mandatory in-person appointment requires time away from work — sometimes several hours — which translates to lost wages for hourly employees who may already be in a difficult situation.
A Concern About How Program Success Is Measured
One issue that deserves more public attention is how pretrial programs track and report their outcomes. In some programs, when a defendant fails to appear, stops checking in, or cannot be located, the case is still recorded as completed in program data. That means a defendant who vanished entirely may count the same in the statistics as one who attended every scheduled hearing.
This matters because those completion rates are often used to justify program funding and demonstrate effectiveness to legislators and courts. When a bondsman's client fails to appear, that outcome is documented, a forfeiture is filed, and I am legally obligated to locate and return that person to custody. There is no way to categorize a skip as a success. The accountability is transparent and verifiable.
The Role of the DA — And Why It Matters
Presenting a defendant's full criminal history to the judge at arraignment is the District Attorney's job — not a pretrial caseworker's. That history is critical for a judge setting appropriate bail conditions, and the DA has the legal obligation and the tools to bring it. In too many courtrooms, pretrial programs have quietly absorbed that function without carrying the same accountability. And when a defendant stops complying entirely, a caseworker's only enforcement move is to email the judge. I can physically locate and return that person to custody. Those are not the same thing.
COVID Accelerated This — And Accountability Got Left Behind
It's worth acknowledging that the push toward catch-and-release practices didn't happen overnight. Bail reform had been building for years, but COVID-19 became the accelerant. In 2020, jails across Colorado and the country began releasing defendants at an unprecedented pace in response to public health concerns about jail overcrowding. The urgency was understandable. But what followed was a significant reduction in accountability that never fully corrected itself when the emergency passed.
Policies that were adopted rapidly under crisis conditions became normalized. Pretrial release expanded. PR bonds were granted more broadly. And the careful, case-by-case evaluation that should accompany every release decision got compressed or skipped entirely. What we're living with now, in many Colorado courtrooms, is the lingering effect of that period — a system that loosened its standards during COVID and hasn't fully returned to the accountability that keeps communities safe.
What a Balanced System Looks Like
After twenty years working across every county in Colorado, here is what I believe a thoughtful, balanced pretrial system looks like. All three bail options — cash bail, property bond, and surety bond — should remain available. Each serves a different circumstance and creates meaningful accountability. Personal recognizance bonds should be reserved for genuine first-time, low-level offenders with no open cases and no history of failures to appear, used thoughtfully rather than routinely.
Judges should have access to complete criminal histories at arraignment, presented by the DA's office as the system was designed to function. And defendants and their families should clearly understand that a PR bond often comes with mandatory court-ordered supervision attached — conditions that will govern their daily life for the entire duration of the case, at their own expense, before any conviction has been entered.
The bail reform conversation is an important one, and it deserves participants who understand the system from the inside out. My goal has never been to resist every change — it's been to make sure that whatever changes are made actually serve the people going through the system, the communities those courts represent, and the principle that showing up to face the process is a fundamental part of justice.
Over twenty years working all over Colorado, I've seen this system at its best and worked through its challenges. That experience shapes everything I've shared here, and I hope it's useful to anyone trying to understand what's actually at stake in this debate.
The views expressed represent one licensed bondsman's professional perspective. This post is intended to inform, not to advocate for any political position. Constitutional references cite the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.