For years now (mostly due to the Hollywood portrayal of the subject), many law enforcement officers and those in the public safety community have been calling for federal oversight and regulation of bounty hunters. The job of bounty hunting has gone by many names, including but not limited to bail enforcement, fugitive recovery, and bail bond recovery. Currently, the job is regulated by the states in which the bounty hunter operates. As usual, the actions of a few have given a black eye to the rest of the industry.
Bounty hunters perform a necessary process of the criminal justice system at no cost to tax payers. Bounty hunters return those who miss court dates into the custody of the courts so that they may stand trial, face their accusers, grant closure to victims, and overall make sure that the courts run smoothly. A court cannot be expected to run smoothly when nobody shows up when they are supposed to. The idea of bail is necessary to protect the rights of the accused, who are innocent until proven guilty. If everybody who was arrested had to wait in jail until their next court date, local jails would become overcrowded and jail staff would become over worked. The bail industry helps to ease the burden through financial motivation for a person to appear in court at the designated time.
There have been instances in the past where bounty hunters have made some pretty stupid (and illegal) decisions. But would that be enough to justify federal oversight? Could our government, given the current economy, really afford to regulate another industry? Should the entire bail industry be handed over to the government so that it can control the business like it now controls the auto and banking industries? Any supporter of free trade would disagree.
Like the adage goes, “Judge not lest ye be judged”. Should the federal government also regulate doctors (for malpractice lawsuits), local police (for excessive force lawsuits and corruption scandals), lawyers (for more malpractice lawsuits) or teachers (for statutory rape lawsuits). The point I am trying to make here is that there are a lot of career fields and groups who have their own internal deviants, but nobody seems to be calling for federal oversight of these industries (unless I’ve missed something). No single group of people is perfect, and as long as free will exists, people are going to break the law, knowingly or not.
In all of the examples listed above, federal oversight / regulation is slim to none. The federal government does take certain steps to support the above career fields, as it does to support the bail industry, but no federal license to practice in any of the above listed fields exists that would allow a person to practice in multiple states. Usually, when a person wants to work in a career field, they must be licensed by their state to practice, unless the job will only be done in a federal area of jurisdiction (like military bases). Few states will allow a person licensed in one state to practice their craft full time in another state. The sovereignty of the states to regulate their own private businesses and civil service jobs is a right of each individual state. While some states have more relaxed requirements than others, it is the right of the states to maintain their relaxed requirements if they so choose. State sovereignty plays a big part in the bail industry. A bounty hunter is usually not allowed to cross state lines to arrest a fugitive or to extradite a fugitive across state lines without permission from the courts of the foreign state. Some states, in fact, have outlawed bounty hunting all together. Bounty hunters respect these laws and do not enter states where their job is “illegal” in order to arrest a fugitive.
The fugitive recovery business gains most of its authority from the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of Taylor v. Taintor (1872). Many would argue that this case is probably the single greatest move the federal government has made to affect the bail bond industry. After that, the federal government has decided (for the most part) to let the individual states regulate the industry within their own borders. The Supreme Court stated in the case that:
“When bail is given, the principal is regarded as delivered to the custody of his sureties. Their dominion is a continuance of the original imprisonment. Whenever they choose to do so, they may seize him and deliver him up in their discharge; and if that cannot be done at once, they may imprison him until it can be done. They may exercise their rights in person or by agent. They may pursue him into another state; may arrest him on the Sabbath, and, if necessary, may break and enter his house for that purpose. The seizure is not made by virtue of new process. None is needed. It is likened to the rearrest by the sheriff of an escaping prisoner.”
What the above states is that the bail bondsman, through himself or an agent (bounty hunter) is granted the same rights of rearrest as any sheriff rearresting an escaped prisoner. This is important because it shows that bounty hunters should be limited to the laws of their own states. A sheriff attempting to rearrest a fugitive may not casually cross state lines to do so. In most cases, they must at least alert the local authorities of the area they are entering. If the police cannot cross state lines as they please, bounty hunters should not be able to do so either. When bounty hunters do need to cross state lines, assuming they are entering a state where bounty hunting is legal, they must usually first receive permission from the courts of the foreign state to extradite their prisoner to their home state. Some states may not even allow a foreign bounty hunter to make an arrest, and will require the bounty hunter to report the location of the fugitive to the local police when it is discovered. These are only possible scenarios. Every jurisdiction a bounty hunter enters may have totally different bounty hunting laws than the last. Allowing bounty hunters a nationwide pass to arrest fugitives in any state would diminish the rights of the individual states. A federal license to practice bounty hunting would allow bounty hunters more authority than local police when it comes to the apprehension of fugitives.
For those who believe that federal training requirements should be set down, the same issue arises. How can the federal government train personnel (or require personnel to be trained a certain way) and expect the training to be effective when the government would have to take into account the laws of fifty different states. Most federal law enforcement officers who wish to work as local or state police must still meet the requirements of the individual state in which they want to work either through training or testing. As a former military police officer, when my military contract expired, I was unable to get a job in law enforcement in any state without meeting the training requirements of that state. Even though I was trained by the federal government and given my authority through federal law.
Federal licensing / training requirements for bounty hunters would lead to a diminishing of state’s rights, would cause even more animosity between law enforcement and the bail industry, and would further the image of bounty hunters being cowboy type vigilantes with broad authority. The actions of a few should not lead the federal government complete control of a private industry. If stricter licensing / training requirements are needed, they should be implemented by the individual states. As of now, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. I’ll say it again; the mistakes of a few should not lead society to believe that the entire system is broken.
Sources:
Taylor v. Taintor. U.S. Supreme Court Center.
