We Must Tell Our Story or it Will be Told For Us
In the bail profession, nothing is ever given. Agents must work hard for every dollar they make. The same goes for credibility and respect.
In the bail profession, nothing is ever given. Agents must work hard for every dollar they make. The same goes for credibility and respect. We can never just expect that people understand what we do or the value we bring to the criminal justice system. We have to make the effort to educate them. We have to be a voice for an industry that is so misunderstood, that even judges and sheriffs have no idea what we do. And that responsibility for clearing up the confusion and educating key stakeholders falls on no one else but ourselves. As the old saying goes, if you do not tell your story, you can sure as heck know that someone else will tell it for you.
In his latest article, Mike Morrison, President of the Mississippi Bail Agents Association, argues that professional bail will not get respect, visibility, or public trust unless agents earn it—in court, in the community, and online. Too much industry social media is just advertising or worse: images and posts that look reckless to voters, reporters, judges, and lawmakers who have no context. A photo of a defendant cuffed to a hospital bed may feel like “the job” to an agent; to everyone else it is the story of the profession. The same standard applies to showing up in court unprepared or dressed like a spectator. A license authorizes the work. Reputation is built by conduct when people are watching and when they are not.
He says bail agents stay invisible until someone needs a bond, which lets opponents define the industry. Groups that want to end surety bail have spent years in hearings, newsrooms, and social media. Silence lets that one-sided story stick. The fix is not louder slogans. It is showing up at civic events, treating families and court staff with dignity, knowing local officials, and asking of every post: is this good for bail, or a slap in the face?
Morrison ties that to The Professional Bondsmen of the United States’s (PBUS) push for a national voice. One association post reached more than 203,000 views, almost all from people who do not follow PBUS—proof the public will hear the profession if it speaks with discipline. Respect cannot be demanded because the work is hard. It has to be demonstrated, agent by agent. Silence, he writes, is what kills bail. Below is an excerpt from Mr. Morrison's article as well as a link to the full article.
If We Want Respect, Visibility and Public Trust, We Have to Earn It
Across the United States, I spend a great deal of time looking at social media pages belonging to bail agents, bail bond companies and organizations within our profession, and far too often I come away asking the same question: where is the pro-bail message? I am not talking about another advertisement telling people who to call when somebody gets arrested. I am talking about the message that professional bail agents live in the same communities as everyone else, raise families there, own businesses there, shop in the same stores, support the same schools and organizations, and want those communities to be safe. Crime does not somehow affect us differently because we work in the bail profession. When neighborhoods become less safe, when victims are harmed, when businesses suffer and when confidence in the criminal justice system declines, we live with those consequences too.
