PART 5: Washington Bail Reform
The proposal to fundamentally change Washington State's criminal justice system has 48 footnotes and citations yet never mentions the word "victim" once
By JL Fullerton
This is the last article in the 5-part series on Washington's proposed court rules changes. This article focuses on the fact that not once in their arguments for completely altering the pretrial release process do the proponents mention the impact that these changes would have on victims. In fact, they don't even use the word victim once in their 10-page proposal. that should tell you everything about who this proposal is supposed to help and let us just tell you...it is not law abiding Washington communities and it is definitely not victims of crime.
Part 5: Washington Bail Reform Proposal Has 84 Footnotes and None of Them Mention Anything About Victims
The proposal to overhaul Washington State's bail system comes with 84 footnotes. It cites studies on jail conditions, pretrial detention, racial disparities, poverty, and the cost of incarceration. It cites law review articles, advocacy reports, federal statutes, and a Seattle Times editorial. What it does not cite — not once — is any research on how pretrial release decisions affect crime victims.
The word "victim" appears in the proposal, but only two very narrow technical. There is no analysis of what happens to victims when defendants fail to appear. No data on how case delays affect victim cooperation or witness safety. No discussion of the domestic violence victim whose case stalls because her abuser posted 10% with the court clerk and never came back.
This is not a minor gap. It is a fundamental blind spot.
Under the current system, when a bail agent posts a surety bond for a defendant, that agent has a financial stake in making sure the defendant shows up for every court date. The agent makes contact with the defendant. The agent monitors. If the defendant flees, the agent — not the local sheriff's department — initiates recovery. This is not a perfect system. But it is a system where someone other than the victim bears the burden of ensuring the defendant returns to court.
Under the proposed rules, that structure would largely disappear for misdemeanor cases. A defendant would post $20 with the court clerk — 10 percent of the $200 cap — and walk out. No agent would call. No one would monitor. If the defendant failed to appear, a bench warrant would be issued and placed in a queue. In many Washington counties, law enforcement is already stretched thin. Those warrants may sit for weeks or months.
Meanwhile, the victim waits. The case does not move. The protection order becomes harder to enforce. And the message to the defendant is clear: the system does not have the capacity or the will to bring you back.
The proponents argue that most failures to appear are not intentional — that defendants miss court because of poverty, transportation problems, mental health issues, and forgetting dates. Research supports this. But the consequences of nonappearance are the same regardless of the reason. The case stalls. The victim's day in court is delayed. Judicial resources are consumed rescheduling. And if the defendant accumulates enough missed dates, a warrant eventually issues that law enforcement may not have the bandwidth to execute.
Here is the question nobody in the proposal asks: if you remove the private accountability infrastructure that currently ensures defendants appear in court, who does that work instead?
The proposal does not fund pretrial services expansion. It does not create a reminder or check-in system. It does not add resources for warrant enforcement. It does not establish victim notification protocols for when defendants fail to appear. It simply removes the existing compliance mechanism and replaces it with nothing.
Washington's own legislature has recognized the value of what bail agents do. RCW 18.185 says bail bond agents and recovery agents "serve a necessary and important purpose in the criminal justice system" by locating, apprehending, and surrendering fugitive defendants. That is not bail industry marketing — it is a legislative finding embedded in Washington law.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics' national data on felony defendants shows that defendants released on surety bonds have lower failure-to-appear rates and dramatically lower fugitive-after-one-year rates than defendants released on recognizance or unsecured bonds. A peer-reviewed study by Helland and Tabarrok in the Journal of Law and Economics found that conditional on failing to appear, surety bond defendants had substantially lower fugitive persistence rates — meaning the private recovery system works.
The proponents frame bail as "wealth-based detention." That framing treats pretrial release as a transaction between the state and the defendant, as if no one else is affected. But behind every criminal case is a person who was harmed. The domestic violence victim. The robbery victim. The person whose car was stolen. These people need the system to work. They need defendants to come back to court. They need cases to be resolved.
A proposal that removes accountability mechanisms without replacing them does not serve these people. A proposal with 84 footnotes and not one about victims is telling you whose interests it prioritizes.
The comment period for these proposed rule changes runs through April 30, 2026. Comments can be submitted to the Clerk of the Washington State Supreme Court.
Email your letter to:
supreme@courts.wa.gov
In the subject line include the following:
Letter of Opposition to Proposed Amendments to CrR/CrRLJ 3.2 (Release of the Accused) and CrR/CrRLJ 2.2 (Warrant of Arrest and Summons) – Order No. 25700-A-1676
Read Parts 1 - 4 of the 5-article series as well as other articles on the topic:
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