Governor Cuomo: Protect New Yorkers from the predatory bail industry

Write Your Letter Below

Dear Governor Cuomo and Department of Financial Services,

I am a New Yorker and am concerned about the current proposed regulations of the bail bond industry. For far too long the industry has been able to operate virtually unregulated in NY state, giving unscrupulous bail agents free reign. Bail corporations prey on some of our most vulnerable communities that have the least political power--specifically people of color and those too poor to afford a lawyer. Similar to payday loans, the bail industry extracts millions of dollars a year from the neighborhoods that can least afford it.

The proposed regulations are far too weak to actually reform the industry. We need your administration to take a zero tolerance approach to holding the bail industry accountable--and that means ramping up enforcement in addition to better regulations.

Below are three main areas of improvement that must be taken into account before new regulations are introduced:

1. Enforcement: The proposed regulations have no element of enforcement. The state must commit to proactively audit and ensure compliance, vigorously investigate complaints, and use all the tools at its disposal to protect people and shut down violators. With people’s freedom at stake, and the resources of their families on the line, our communities need real enforcement of the bail bond industry with no tolerance for predatory abuses.

We need DFS to explicitly prohibit bail bond agents from:

-Jailing people beyond what the courts require
-Waiting over a week to notify families when they send their loved one to jail
-Keeping people detained long after their family posts bond
-Taking goods valued over 10% of the bond as collateral from families

2. Disclosure is not enough: Your proposed regulations rely heavily on adding disclosures, rather than limiting abusive terms. Individuals encountering documents issued by a bail bondsmen will still have no ability or expertise to decode them, time to review them, or power to negotiate or reject terms. Simply telling people about the ways that the industry will exploit you is not reform at all. Disclosure does nothing to shift power dynamics and ensure even the slightest form of justice. The bail bond industry cannot be fixed by adding new or clearer ways of explaining how they will abuse people who have no choice but to sign whatever is on the forms presented to them.

We need DFS to commit to:

-Forbid requirements that do or may interfere with the principals’ or indemnitors’ ability to work, go to school, or fulfill family or other personal obligations (e.g., DFS should prohibit bond agents from requiring in-person check-ins during business hours for principals who work during the day). 
-DFS should forbid unreasonable intrusion on the privacy and personal information of indemnitors and principals. DFS should explicitly forbid any requirements that are reasonably likely to cause a principal or his or her loved ones to incur significant personal costs to fulfill.
-Transparency by posting all forms that customers have to sign online so that customers have additional time and access to review what they are signing.

3. True investment in regulating the industry: For new regulation to have impact, your office will need to commit to additional resources and staff. Large-scale efforts to expose and reign in the bail bond industry in states such as California, New Jersey and Minnesota have used administrative, civil and criminal jurisdiction.

I hope that you take my comments on the proposed regulations into consideration and revise them to represent my feedback.

Thank you,

Name*
Email address*
State
Region
ZIP Code*
Postal code

required*

By taking action, you will also receive periodic communications from ColorOfChange. By providing your mobile number you consent to receive cell phone and text communications from ColorOfChange and its affiliated entities concerning news and action opportunities. Message and data rates may apply. You can unsubscribe at any time by texting STOP to 55156.

Governor Cuomo: Protect New Yorkers from the predatory bail industry

The bail industry is wreaking havoc on families and communities in New York, and Governor Cuomo is doing nothing to protect us. Just last year, the bail bond companies extracted between 16 million and 27 million in wealth from communities in New York City--mostly from poor people looking to pay their way to freedom. Despite lots of political posturing acknowledging the harms of the industry and its predatory practices, even going as far to say he would eliminate cash bail, we've seen very little action from Cuomo's administration. And now, in a weak response to community pushback, he has proposed new regulations that will continue to let the bail industry off the hook even more. These are some of the weakest regulations we've ever seen and we have to stand up and demand Cuomo live up to his word and take a zero tolerance approach to stopping bail industry abuse.

The bail bond industries exploitative practices greatly harm our people. Bail bondsmen in New York are notorious for taking longer than a week after they received payment to actually post the bond. You could pay for your sons release and still have to wait a week for him to come home, this is what happened to Belva when her son was arrested in 2016 and detained at Rikers Island. In addition to the quarter-million dollar loan she took out to bring her son home she also spent thousands of dollars on hidden fees and premiums.

But here's the thing: Cuomo is susceptible to our pressure and we can get him to do the right thing with the right amount of public pressure. After over a year of grassroots communities demanding that Governor Cuomo investigate the bail bond industry, he finally did over the summer. This was a huge WIN and wouldn't have been possible without your support. Now we have to keep the same energy up to make sure that Cuomo won't get away with doing the bare minimum to respond to community needs. His office must put forth stronger regulations that actually make it possible for exploitative bail agents, like the one who took advantage of Belva, to have their licenses suspended and go out of business. Right now, Cuomo's regulations would only require that the bail agent give Belva a hard-to-read and long document to describe the ways she's being exploited--without actually helping her. Governor Cuomo's proposed regulations to "reform" the industry are far too weak and New Yorkers deserve better--but the bail industry is going to send comments in droves to keep these regulations as weak as possible. That's why we need to come together again to show Cuomo what the community really needs.

New Yorkers have until November 5th to summit feedback on the proposed regulations of the bail bond industry and to demand real reform and better protections for people forced to secure bail money to bring a loved one home. We have to make sure the Department of Financial Services sees more comments from community members than they do from the bail industry. Will you join us in flooding the comments with letters demanding the bail enforcement New York deserves?