 and thank you for joining us on ThinkText Connecting Hawaii Business. My name is Kathleen Lee with Kathleen Lee Consulting and I am your host for today. So on our show we are going to talk about sorry throw that little pot there COVID-19 and early inmate releases and our guest today is Nick Lindblad but before I go into his introduction if you do have any live questions that you would like to send us you can send it to questions at thinktechhawaii.com. Now with that being said let me go ahead and introduce Nick Lindblad. Hey Nick thanks for being on the show today. Hey how's it going? So tell us about yourself. Tell you about me well I'm a local boy first and foremost born and raised in Honolulu. I'm a townie and a lot of times when people ask like you know about yourself what they really mean is oh what high school you went and then they make all kinds just judgments right but I went St. Louis born and raised here. I've been a bail bondsman licensed since 2004. I'm a second generation bail bondsman my dad actually is a 40 plus year bail agent so I've been working here in Hawaii. I run A1 bail bonds and yeah the mission is just to fight the good fight and help people get out of custody and then guarantee that they return to court for the court appearances. And going back to basics what are bail bonds Nick? What are bail bonds? Okay so um a bail bond is an insurance based product or service it's a way to get out of custody through posting a bond. So what that means is I could basically just post a bond get somebody out of custody and then as long as they go to court everything is all good. Now there's several different ways to get out of custody. First and foremost and I think the best way is if you have the financial means it's just to post the cash. So if you have a bail for maybe $500 because you got a DUI on a three-day weekend. Most people they have a third party or they themselves post the $500 cash it gets them out of custody and then at the end of their case which is usually about a year you'll get your money back. The court will hold that money as an incentive to secure your appearance in court. Once you're done with court you get your money back that's how you get out through just posting cash that's like the ideal way for those who have the means. Now say you don't have the cash and say your bail is set to something way higher like $10,000. If you have like a really big bail you could instead if you don't have the $10,000 which most people don't you could instead hire a bail bondsman to post a bail bond for that $10,000 amount. However there's a catch there's two things that we require. First a co-signer that means somebody to sign and guarantee that the person goes to court and then we also charge a fee which is not returned to you. That fee is typically 10% of the amount of the bail so $10,000 bond means $1,000 fee. Then there's the free ways to get out but you have to qualify. If you have like a perfect record it's clean and then you're accused of a crime that's really nominal maybe like a misdemeanor you can just get let out on your own reconnaissance or ROR release on your own reconnaissance that's like ideal because there's no real conditions that you have to adhere to besides the basic ones like hey return to court and don't take off to another place and not return and then the trade-off is there's conditions and they vary if you have to go through supervised release. Own reconnaissance release is number one, supervised release is an option that's free for the defendant. However there could be conditions like you got to submit to urinary analysis you got to check in with an intake service worker you got to have a curfew you got to wear an electronic monitor there could be like all different types of conditions but it is the advantages it is free. It's taxpayer supported but it is free if you could qualify for it. Okay and as we're talking about going back to basics and you went over what exactly bail bombs are I know we mentioned this a few days ago when we were talking about this and one of your pet peeves is how people kind of interchange the term jail and prison can you go over that for a bit before we launch into you know more of a discussion? Yeah totally so I got called out on this because I made the mistake and then I realized oh my god I've been making this mistake and I felt kind of shame but an actual judge pointed this out to me because I was really just nervous because he's a judge and he's a retired judge but he's running for city prosecutor and I just got nervous I used them back and forth but a jail is where people are held pretrial a prison is where people are held long term and they're serving sentences so if something happens and you're just accused of a crime you've been charged with a crime and you don't bail out you'll be at OCCC which is our jail pretrial jail however if something happens and you do have to serve a term of imprisonment multiple years you'll go to our prison which is Halava that's the difference between a jail and a prison. Okay and on that note like who sets bail like how is how is bail set? That's kind of like a controversial subject and there aren't like defined like there's not like a published book that says this is how we set bail so you kind of have to get all the information from experience and from different parties who tell you how bail is traditionally set. So for most people this is the way to think about it when you're arrested a detective or a police officer will submit a report and make a recommendation on what the amount of the bail should be. The prosecutor's office has to also review the report and sort of give input on what they believe the bail should be as well. Once those two like sets of input are submitted the court confirms a bail amount. It's unclear who has the heavier influence the police or the prosecutor's office but they do settle on a number and the court usually just confirms in a majority of cases whatever they come to terms on so whatever your bail is set at that's what you have to deal with if you want to post bail and get out of custody like right when you get charged with crime. Okay and let's tie in one of the viewer questions that we received how does let me go ahead and read this how does one go about getting a bail bond in instances where someone needs to collateralize something. Okay so basically you shouldn't need collateral if you're doing a bond that's probably under $150,000 so here's the thing with collateral and we'll break it down. There's the confusing thing where people think like oh maybe I don't have the money is there any way I could just submit collateral and get my loved one out what they're basically getting mixed up is the difference between qualifying for a bail bond and paying the fee and then not having the fee and then like substituting in like a car title or you know jewelry things that like they could substitute for fee so if you're talking about trying to find a way to not pay the fee there really isn't a way around that. On larger cases like ones that have bails that are set to like $250,000 $500,000 in order to qualify for a bail bond you're gonna need three things one the cosigner two the fee and then lastly collateral because it's such a large amount typically bondsmen just take a lien on a piece of property and it's only like paperwork it doesn't actually become something where you could have your house taken away unless the defendant abscons you have to pay the court the entire amount and then by filing that mortgage lien on somebody's property you have that first position so upon sale you can get paid back the money that you're owed but that's like really big bonds like $250,000 $500,000 really big bonds that you actually need collateral to qualify. Okay and on that note this is we're doing this really smoothly on that note we can tie in the next viewer question which is do you have an opinion about what constitutes excessively high bail for a person? Yeah so when people talk about the bail system and they say things like end cash bail or end money bail or people are languishing in custody just because of cash bail well yes and no I think it's not that simple I think there are two things that should never happen in the criminal justice system. Number one is when your bail is set excessively high so if I'm like an 18 year old kid there's no way for me to have like you know this robust cash flow and like property like if I'm 18 and I've been accused of something you know maybe a class B or C felony which isn't the most serious like an A but maybe a B or C bail should be set reasonably to guarantee that I go back to court it shouldn't be leveraged to keep me in custody as the 18 year old kid who can't afford a million dollar bail or a $500,000 bail I think when you set bails excessively high that has a function rather people want to admit it or not the function and the result is people just languish in custody because they don't have the money to post the bail it's set too high. The second way that I think cash is leveraged to detain people is when bails are set to cash only. Bail could be set to cash only and say your bail is $20,000 if it's set to cash only it means only submitting $20,000 cash will get you out. Now that's unreasonable a majority of everyday Americans can't even afford an emergency of like maybe four or five hundred dollars there's no way for somebody to get 20 grand to get their loved one out. I think when bail is set to cash only that's like an abuse of the cash elements of bail and then when it's set excessively high and its only function is to keep people in custody that's wrong as well. So let's go back to the title of the show which is COVID-19 and early inmate release and let's talk about how this pandemic has the way how this pandemic has affected the way that you've done your job as a bail agent so could you go into that? You know what the first surprise was now when I get people out I have to make sure that they pass the Department of Health sort of clearance they test them for COVID I think they're trying to do like contract tracing so you have to release like I don't have to but the inmate has to say like oh if they're staying somewhere what their address is they have to stay in contact with the Department of Health to report back if they're feeling like bad or they get tested now there's like a way to trace so the Department of Health coming in to administer COVID tests I think is a big change it delays releases a little bit but of course it's worth it because we need to trace the people who do have COVID-19 and then the people around them they need to be warned so that you know they don't continue the spike so that's one wrinkle when it comes to doing things contact-free tell you the truth I did a lot of that back in 2019 if people wanted to get a bail bond they could do everything on their phone in about five or six minutes they could pay in about a minute or two and then I don't really need to meet anybody to do a bail bond I could just do it over the internet or do it over phone tablet computer they could do the electronic signature they could pay I'll go to the courthouse I'll go drop off the bond I'll go give them a call when it's time to pick up their loved one but I can do it basically contactless and I've actually done people on other islands and I've just had them fill out my online application send me a selfie so that you know they send me a selfie in their tattoos and that's been a contact-free way to do it okay hold that thought because I really want you to go more into that after the break so you already talked about you doing contactless and then let's go further into what else what other factors have affected your business since the pandemic hi I'm Rusty Kamori host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships my show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about leadership creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness I feature a wide range of amazing guests who share valuable insights about how going beyond the lines leads to success in everything you do in life I'm looking forward to you joining me every Monday at 11 a.m. Aloha. Hawaii is connecting Hawaii business my name is Kathleen Lee and our guest on the show today is Nick Lindland a bail bonds agent and we are talking about COVID-19 and early inmate releases so when we left off we were discussing how the pandemic has either changed or shifted the bail bonds industry Nick you want to pick up from that yeah sure I think one of the great innovations to come from the pandemic that most people are experiencing now is video conferencing and that's been tremendous for the judiciary because now hearings that to tell you the truth I felt as though previously never needed to technically be an in-person live hearing now those types of hearings can just be held be a teleconference or video conference I think that's a tremendous like tool for the judiciary because they've got plenty of cases there's always lots of people you know getting charged with things and there's always these you know sometimes it's serious yeah you have to be there to say not guilty but when that's the only thing that that hearing was for most people will say hey I could do that via video conference or teleconference now of course you should never have a trial via zoom you know you do have the right to face your accuser and you can't have like a jury of 12 people reporting via zoom you know during a trial I'm not going to go there but when it comes to like hearings like calendar call or status conference or a Raymond and plea where you literally have to take a day off just to go to court at like 8 30 and say not guilty then leave video conferencing that's the way to go it's the efficient way to do it and it's the cheaper way to make sure that like people don't have to spend money you know on transport coming in and it's more efficient for the court right I know you had sent a couple of articles about like early prison or inmate releases and we actually have a viewer question that kind of goes along with that so I would want you to address this as well so the question is John Oliver did a piece about how there are masses like some COVID-19 in prisons have you seen the same thing in Hawaii okay John Oliver I once saw like years ago he really had a negative like piece on the bail bond industry and I've always wanted to point out all the things that he had wrong on that piece but I haven't done that video yet but when it comes to COVID-19 it's you know a pandemic that we've never had to deal with in our lifetimes in our lifetimes here in America of course there's always been different viruses across the world especially in Asia but they never seem to really hit Hawaii or the US the way that they did in other places across the globe but when it comes to like the pandemic we all sort of got caught on our heels and that's because the prison system and the judicial system is fragile I don't think there's any way else to put it if you stress a system you got to be able to like pivot you got to be able to change on the fly and you got to be able to do what's right for the people in custody and the attorneys working the judicial staff the ACOs want to protect themselves from being exposed we totally were caught on our heels when it came to reacting to this and it's because we've just kicked the can down the road on prison overcrowding and just jail slash prison overcrowding in general OCCC is crowded Halava all of our facilities are in decrepit repair and until we fix that we're not going to be in a position of strength when something happens we're going to be caught sort of like it's kind of like insurance you can't time insurance if you happen to have an accident and need to go to the ER you can't know that the morning of sign up for health insurance pay your premium and then later that afternoon when you need it oh thank god I did that it has to be done on the front end before there's you know the overcrowding because the overcrowding just makes it dangerous for one the spread of the virus two it makes it like not impossible but highly like very difficult for the ACOs the corrections officers or ACOs adult correction officers ACOs to like do their job because there's unrest in the prison you just want to make sure that you if you're going to have to have a facility to hold people it has to be done in a humane way a clean way to help combat those things but we didn't do that we got caught on our heels OCCC is overcrowded it's had bouts with like infestation there's high like emotions over you know the the the way that people are held in custody in those conditions and the pandemic didn't help so it's because we were caught on our heels because we didn't bother strengthening the system strengthening the jails making sure that it's not overcrowded so that we could react to something like that that's what i think happens to us and i know you're very passionate about you know what you do and helping people out and so we have about maybe like eight nine minutes and i know like when i ask this question you're you could probably talk for like hours on this but we're gonna try to keep it to like eight nine minutes what are your suggestions for solutions or reform oh to decrease um the overcrowding okay number one it's the front end of the process there's a lot of things that people are arrested for that they didn't need to be arrested for like it's one thing to be sort of like charged with a crime but in many cases you could be cited you could show up to court and then at the end the court could determine your punishment all the same of course these are for small you know driving without insurance or you know other misdemeanor things where you could just be like given a citation and you don't have to go down to the police station you don't have to make bail you don't have to take a chance on the court not letting you out on your own reconnaissance and then languishing at OCCC you could instead cite people for certain crimes and have them go to court and then if they don't go to court that contempt warrant that's generated then those could be the things that have to be arrestable offenses because you've already displayed that you're supposed to go to court you didn't and now you're going to get arrested for that small misdemeanor charge that's number one we don't need to arrest as many people as we currently do and then that'll have like the effect of like lessening the amount of people who may languish in custody later that's number one number two we need to like be more truthful in general about the bail system I get attacked as a bail bondsman because we have a service that's a private sector service and many people believe that it should just be run by the public sector but if you did a review of all the jurisdictions that only have a public sector release method you find that they have the exact same overcrowding issues and in some cases it's actually worse because crime goes up New York is an example of when they got rid of cash bail the crime rate went up double digits Harris County which is Houston is another example and these are just this year where they got rid of cash requirements in the bail system violent crime as well as nonviolent crime went up double digits so it's super important that we just be truthful and we use the other jurisdictions on the mainland as an example of what we should do here in Hawaii specific to the release system here in Hawaii we do have a dynamic system we have optionality you could one post cash that's the best two you can go through a bail bondsman that's an option three you could hope for release on your own reconnaissance or four you can get out through supervised release with conditions those last two own reconnaissance as well as supervised release are absolutely free to the defendant so it's not money that's keeping people at OCCC it's that they can't qualify for supervised release so the reform should be just as strong when it comes to reforming cash bail and those two cash examples when it's set excessively high or when it's set to cash only that needs to be reformed and the exact same thing is true within the intake service center who controls supervised release they make recommendations on whether somebody should be let out on supervised release or not that needs to be reformed as well I was just talking with an attorney about you know this exact issue and the attorney said you know what I filed a petition to get my client out and then I found out that the intake service center when they do their bail study they don't even consider the financial part like what the person is able to pay I was like wow that seems strange that if somebody can't bail out you think you'd want to ask that question so that you could maybe make a recommendation for a lower bail but the way that the intake service center does bail reports right now there's no like section in the bail study to say hey what would be a more realistic bail amount say if they didn't qualify for supervised release and I think I'll kind of like wrap it up on this last critical point when you have optionality several different ways to get out of custody that is an overall more healthy way to reach the goal of getting people out of custody you want as much options as possible if you were to just have government options which means detain or release what do you do if the judge says no we're going to detain you you have no other recourse so it's super important that if we want to have if we want to be truthful and it's really about getting people out of custody it has to be let's get people out of custody we can't argue amongst ourselves and say no we want to reduce prison overcrowding but by the way it has to be the way that I want to do it has to be this certain way I think the goal is to get people out of custody and to do that everything's on the table all hands on deck it's not not it's got to be my way that's just not the way that I think it's very productive to try to solve the problem which is so complex and so I mean it's just such a huge deal I agree and if people want to learn more about bail bonds or want to talk to you further about this the subject how can they contact you okay I made a youtube station specifically for this my name I go by a one neck with a one bail bonds I tried to brand myself that way I hope you could just go to youtube and put a one bail bonds and that should show up with like literally I think I have 100 something videos how to turn in and bail out in under an hour little tips and tricks to make sure that you can get through the system when to hire a private attorney versus go with a public defender I have videos on all that and that's a good reference we also have the videos on facebook I'm hoping that I've branded myself well enough where you can just put a one bail bonds into google or youtube lots of information did you already mention your email address as well uh you can hit me up on facebook through um our a one site if you want to email me directly it's my name nicolas lindblad at gmail.com um you can call me if you just put a one bail bonds into any you know search engine I you should be able to just call and I'm available um yeah plenty of ways to get in touch with me awesome thank you so much nick for coming on the show today and for our viewers out there who may not have caught this on live stream it will be on think tech hawaii.com as well as think tech's youtube page so again thank you so much and have a good day