The Bounty Hunter’s Pursuit of Justice 赏金猎人的正义追寻 作者：Alex Tabarrok @ 2011-冬

译者：陈小乖（@lion_kittyyyyy)，带菜刀的诗人

校对：Tianyi Xu (@pathto)

来源：The Wilson Quarterly， http://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/the-bounty-hunters-pursuit-of-justice/ When felony defendants jump bail, bounty hunters spring into action. It's a uniquely American system, and it works.

当重罪嫌疑人弃保潜逃时，赏金猎人便会立刻展开行动。这是一套美国独有的制度，并且它行之有效。

Andrew Luster had it all: a multimillion-dollar trust fund, good looks, and a bachelor pad just off the beach in Mussel Shoals, California. Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor, spent his days surfing and his nights cruising the clubs. His life would have been sad but unremarkable if he had not had a fetish for sex with unconscious women. When one woman alleged rape, Luster claimed mutual consent, but the videotapes the police discovered when they searched his home told a different story. Eventually, more than 10 women came forward, and he was convicted of 20 counts of rape and sentenced to 124 years in prison. There was only one problem. Luster could not be found.

Andrew Luster曾经应有尽有：数百万美元的信托基金、英俊的外表以及一套位于加州马尔斯肖尔斯（Mussel Shoals）的海边单身公寓。Luster是传奇彩妆品牌蜜丝佛陀（Max Factor）创始人的曾孙。他过着白天在海上冲浪，夜里流连往返于各个夜店的日子。要不是他沉湎于迷奸女性，他的生活不过是可怜又平常的。当一名女性声称被Luster强奸时，他表示是两厢情愿的。可警方从他住所搜出的录影带却表明并非如此。最终，十多名女性站了出来，指证Luster的罪行。法院裁定Luster 20项强奸罪名成立，并判处他124年监禁，但问题是：Luster已不见踪影。

Shortly before he was expected to take the stand, Luster withdrew funds from his brokerage accounts, found a caretaker for his dog, and skipped town on a $1 million bail bond. The FBI put Luster on its most-wanted list, but months passed with no results. In the end, the authorities did not find him. But Luster was brought to justice—by a dog (or at least a man who goes by that name).

在出庭前夕，Luster从他的经纪账户中撤出了资金，为他的狗找了个看护，然后放弃了一百万美元的保释金溜之大吉。FBI将Luster列为最重要的通缉犯，但历经数月依旧毫无进展。官方机构始终没能找到他。但最终Luster还是被一条狗（或至少是以此名义出现的一个人）绳之以法。

Duane Chapman, star of the A&E reality TV show Dog: The Bounty Hunter, tracked Luster for months. He picked up clues to Luster’s whereabouts from old phone bills and from Luster’s mother, who inadvertently revealed that her son spoke fluent Spanish. He also gleaned useful information from a mysterious Mr. X who taunted him by e-mail and who may have been Luster himself. Finally, a tip from someone who had seen Dog on television brought Chapman to a small town in Mexico known for its great surfing. Days later, he and his team spotted Luster at a taco stand, apprehended him, and turned him over to the local police.

A&E频道真人秀节目《赏金猎人大狗（ Dog ： The Bounty Hunter ）》中的明星Duane Chapman追踪Luster数月。他通过Luster的旧电话账单，以及Luster母亲无意间提及的她儿子能讲一口流利的西班牙语等线索来判断Luster的行踪。此外，他还从神秘人X先生嘲讽他的电子邮件中搜集到有用的信息，这位神秘人可能就是Luster本人。最后，来自赏金猎人大狗的观众的线报将Chapman带到了一个以冲浪闻名的墨西哥小镇。数日后，Chapman和他的团队在一个墨西哥夹饼小摊前发现了Luster，将他一举拿下送往当地警局。

Most people don’t realize how many fugitives from the law there are. About one-quarter of all felony defendants fail to show up on the day of their trial. Some of these absences are due to forgetfulness, hospitalization, or even imprisonment on another charge. But like Luster, many felony defendants skip court with willful intent. The police are charged with recapturing these fugitives, but some of them are chased by an even more tireless pursuer, the bounty hunter.

大多数人并没有意识到有多少逃犯仍逍遥法外，大约四分之一的重罪嫌疑人没有在庭审之日按时出庭。有些是因为忘了出庭时间，或正住院接受治疗，甚至正因另一起案件而接受监禁。但还有许多重罪嫌疑人是像Luster一样，蓄意潜逃。警察负有将这些逃犯抓捕归案的责任，但有些逃犯则是由一群更加不知疲倦的人追捕的——他们就是赏金猎人。

Bounty hunters and bail bondsmen play an important but unsung role in a legal system whose court dockets are too crowded to provide swift justice. When a suspect is arrested, a judge must make a decision: set the suspect free on his own recognizance until the court is ready to proceed, hold the suspect in jail, or release the accused on the condition that he post a bail bond. A bond is a promise backed by incentive. If the suspect shows up on the trial date, he gets his money back; but if he fails to show, the money is forfeited. We don’t want to deprive the innocent of their liberty, but we also don’t want to give the guilty too much of a head start on their escape. Bail bonds don’t solve this problem completely, but they do give judges an additional tool to help them navigate the dilemma.

由于法庭日程过于繁忙而无法保证及时的审理，赏金猎人和保释担保人在法律系统中扮演着重要却默默无闻的角色。当嫌疑人被逮捕后，法官必须先在自行具结监外候审，羁押以及交保候审之间做出决定。保释是一种基于激励的承诺。如果嫌疑人在庭审当日出庭，他便能取回保释金，如果他未能按时出庭，那么这笔钱就会被没收。我们不想剥夺无辜者的自由，但也不希望给罪犯逃跑的机会。保释金制度并不能完全解决这个问题，但它确实为法官在两难之间作出权衡提供了一个额外手段。

Bail might be a rich man’s privilege were it not for the bail bondsman. (Many bondsmen are women, but “bondsperson” doesn't have quite the same ring, so I’ll use the standard terminology.) In return for a non-refundable fee, usually around 10 percent of the bond, a bondsman will put up his own money with the court. A typical bond might run $6,000. If the defendant shows up, the bondsman earns $600. But if the defendant flees, the bondsman potentially can forfeit $6,000. Potentially, because when a fugitive fails to appear, the court gives the bondsman a notice that essentially says, “Bring your charge to justice soon or your money is mine.” A bondsman typically has 90 to 180 days to bring a fugitive back to justice, so when a defendant jumps bail, the bondsman lets the dogs loose.

保释也许是一种富人特权，但幸好还有保释担保人。保释担保人会替被保释者支付全额保释金，通常被保释者会支付保释金的百分之十左右作为回报。一笔典型的保释金可能要6000美元。如果嫌疑人按时出庭，那么担保人就能赚取600美元，但如果嫌疑人潜逃，那么这6000美元就有被没收的危险。这是因为当逃犯没能按时出庭时，法院会给担保人一张通知，大意为“快把你的被保释人带到法庭，不然你的钱就是我的了”。担保人通常有90到180天的时间来找到逃犯，将他送到法庭，所以当被告弃保潜逃时，担保人就会让赏金猎人出动。

Actually, that last image suggesting a massive manhunt is misleading. Bail bond firms are often small, family-run businesses—the wife writes the bonds and the husband, the “bounty hunter,” searches for clients who fail to show up in court. Although a bondsman never knows when a desperate client might turn violent, his job is usually routine, as I found out when Dennis Sew volunteered to show me the ropes. Dennis has been in the business for more than 20 years and in 2009 was named agent of the year by the Professional Bail Agents of the United States. Nevertheless, I was apprehensive as I drove to Baltimore early one morning to try my hand at bounty hunting.

事实上，抓捕行动并非人们想象中那样兴师动众。保释担保公司通常都是些夫妻店，老婆提供担保，老公则扮演赏金猎人的角色，搜寻抓捕未能按时出庭的客户。虽然担保人无从知晓什么时候绝望的客户会使用暴力，但Dennis Sew的志愿演示让我了解到，通常担保人的工作只是例行公事。Dennis从事这行已经20多年了，2009年还被美国职业保释代理协会（Professional Bail Agents of the United States）评选为年度代理人。尽管如此，在一个清晨，当我开车到巴尔的摩（Baltimore）尝试当一回赏金猎人时，我仍心存顾虑。

When Dennis and I meet, he hands me a photo showing our first fugitive of the day. I’ll be honest. I was expecting to see a young African-American male. What can I say? It’s Baltimore and I've seen every episode of The Wire. But I’m surprised. Taken a few years ago in better times, the picture shows an attractive young woman, perhaps at her prom. She has long blond hair and bright eyes. She is smiling.

当Dennis和我见面时，他递给我一张当天的第一个追捕对象的照片。坦白地说，我以为会是一个年轻的黑人男性。怎么说呢？毕竟这里是巴尔的摩【 译注：巴尔的摩市的犯罪率显著高于美国平均水平，种族结构以黑人为主，根据2010年的人口普查，黑人占当地人口的63%。 】，而且我看了每一集《火线》（The Wire）【 译注：《火线》是一部现实主义电视剧，由HBO在美国播出，讲述了马里兰州巴尔的摩市警察与犯罪团伙间交锋的故事。曾有媒体报道称，一些本地的黑人学生表示，这个电视剧揭了黑人社区的伤疤，他们自己就认识许多和剧中角色类似的人。 】但我吃了一惊，照片上是一个迷人的年轻女性，拍摄于几年前还年轻的时候，可能就在她的高中毕业舞会上。她有着金色的长发，微笑着，眼睛闪闪发亮。

We drive to the house where a tip has placed her. It’s a middle-class home in a nice suburb. Children’s toys are strewn about the garden. I’m accompanied by Dennis and two of his coworkers—a former police officer and a former sheriff’s deputy. One of them takes the back while Dennis knocks. A woman still in her nightclothes answers. She does not seem surprised to have four men knocking at her door this early in the morning. She volunteers that we can search the house, and eventually we get the whole story from her.

我们驱车前往线索所指的她的栖身之处。那是一座坐落于郊外，地段颇好的中产阶级的房子，孩子们的玩具散落在花园里。我由Dennis和他的两名同事陪同，他们分别曾是警员和副警长。当Dennis敲门时其中一人走向后门。一个还穿着睡衣的女人开了门，对于四个男人一大清早敲开她门这事她似乎一点都不吃惊。她主动提出让我们搜查整个房子，最后，我们从她那儿听到了故事的全部。

“Chrissy,” our fugitive, is the woman’s niece. Chrissy was at the house two days before and may return. The once attractive young woman has had her life ruined by drugs. Or she has ruined her life with drugs—sometimes it’s hard to tell. She is now a heroin addict whose boyfriend regularly beats her. The aunt is momentarily shocked when we show her the photo. No, she doesn't look like that anymore—her hair is brown, her face is covered with scabs and usually bruised, and she weighs maybe 85 pounds. “Be gentle with her,” the aunt says, even though, she predicts, “she will probably fight.”

Chrissy，我们的追捕对象，是这个女人的侄女。她两天前曾住在这里，而且可能还会回来。这个曾经如此迷人的年轻女人被毒品毁了一生，或者，她用毒品毁了她自己的一生，有时候这很难区分。她现在吸食海洛因成瘾，男朋友还常常打她。当我们向她阿姨出示那张照片时，她一惊。不，她看上去已经不再是这个样子了：她现在的头发是棕色的，脸上满是痂和淤青而且体重只有大概85磅。虽然她阿姨估计Chrissy很可能会和我们对抗，但她还是对我们说，“对她友善点。”

The aunt gives us another location to scout: a parking lot where Chrissy and her mother are supposedly living out of a car. We are about to leave when the aunt thanks us for being quiet, because there’s a child in the house who was scared the last time the police came by. The child is Chrissy’s son. We drive to the location and look for the car. Dennis and his deputies see what looks like the vehicle and knock on one of the dirty windows, peering intently into the interior. The car is empty. Dennis and his deputies will return later.

Chrissy的阿姨给了我们另一个搜寻地点：一处停车场，Chrissy和她的母亲应该住在一辆车里。在我们即将离开的时候，她阿姨对我们保持安静表示了感谢。因为上次来的警察惊吓到了屋里的孩子，他是Chrissy的儿子。我们开到那个停车场，搜寻Chrissy和她母亲住的那辆车。Dennis和他的助手们看见了一辆看着可能是搜寻目标的汽车，敲了敲其中一扇脏乎乎的车窗，同时目不转睛地注意着车内的动静，车里空无一人。Dennis和他的助手们稍后会再回来。

What it takes to be a successful bounty hunter is mostly persistence and politeness. On most days your leads don’t pay off, so you need to visit and revisit the fugitive’s home, work, and favorite hangouts. Waiting is a big part of the game. Why politeness? Well, where do the leads come from? From people like Chrissy’s aunt—relatives and friends who might not talk to the police but who will respond to a kind word.

成为一个成功的赏金猎人关键在于坚持不懈和以礼待人。大多数时候你的线索都不会有什么帮助，所以你需要不断地造访追捕对象的家、工作场所以及他平日里最爱去的地方。等待是这场游戏的重要组成部分。那么，为什么要以礼待人呢？想想，你的线索从哪儿来？从像Chrissy的阿姨这样的人那里来，他们是追捕对象的亲戚、朋友。他们对警察可能不理不睬，但他们会回应友善的交谈。

Bounty hunters are polite even to the fugitives who, after all, are also their customers, and sadly, bounty hunters rely a lot on repeat business. One customer of a firm owned by the same family that runs the one Dennis works for told him proudly, “My family and I have been coming to Frank’s Bail Bonds for three generations.”

赏金猎人甚至对追捕对象都很友善。因为追捕对象终究也是他们的客户。而且，可悲的是，赏金猎人依靠大量回头客。一个和Dennis所在公司被同一家族拥有的另一间公司的客户曾自豪地对他说：“我们家族三代人都找Frank的保释担保公司。”【 编注：这句原文比较费解，从字面看，这里似乎分别提到了服务方和客户方的两个家族，但依我看，作者本意可能是：两个“family”指的是同一个家族，而且是客户方的。 】

Most fugitives don’t fight, and Dennis is eager to avoid confrontation. Cowboys don’t last long in this business. Most bounty hunters have a working relationship with police officers and will sometimes call on them to make the arrest once a fugitive has been located.

大多数追捕对象并不反击，同时Dennis也极力避免冲突。冲动的人在这行干不久。大多数赏金猎人与警员有着工作伙伴关系，有时一旦追捕对象被锁定，他们便会打电话给警察让他们采取逮捕行动。

A bounty hunter also benefits from being prepared. A typical application for a bond, for example, requires information about the defendant’s residence, employer, former employer, spouse, children (along with their names and schools), spouse’s employer, mother, father, automobile (including description, tags, and financing), union membership, previous arrests, and so forth. In addition, bond dealers need access to all kinds of public and private databases. Noted bounty hunter Bob Burton says that a list of friends who work at the telephone, gas, or electric utility, the post office, welfare agencies, and in law enforcement is a major asset. Today, familiarity with the Internet and computer databases is a must.

充分的准备也对赏金猎人大有好处。例如，一个典型的担保申请需要被告人提供居住地址、现雇主、前雇主、配偶、孩子（以及他们的姓名和学校）、配偶的雇主、父母、汽车（包括描述、车牌、车贷）、所属工会、之前的被捕记录等一系列信息。此外，担保人还会查看所有公共和私人的数据库信息。著名赏金猎人Bob Burton说，拥有在电信公司、加油站、电力公司、邮局、福利机构以及执法机构等各行各业工作的朋友是一笔巨大的财富。如今，熟悉互联网和电脑数据库也是一项必备技能。

Good bond dealers master the tricks of their trade. The first three digits of a Social Security number, for example, indicate the state where the number was issued. This information can suggest that an applicant might be lying if he claims to have been born elsewhere, and it may provide a clue about where a skipped defendant has family or friends.

好的担保人能够轻易识别交易中的小陷阱。比如，社保号前三位表示该社保号的发行州，如果申请人声称出生在其他州，那么他可能在说谎。此外，这一信息还能为逃跑的被告人在哪里有亲戚朋友提供线索。

If at all possible, bail bondsmen get a friend or family member to cosign the bond. The reason is simple. A defendant whose bond is cosigned is less likely to flee. As Dennis told me, “In my line of work, I deal with some mean people, people who aren't afraid of me or the police. But even the mean ones are afraid of their mom, so if I can get Mom to list her house as collateral, I know the defendant is much more likely to show up when he is supposed to.” A defendant whose bond is cosigned is also more likely to be caught if he does flee, because the bondsman will remind the cosigner that if the fugitive can’t be found, it’s not just the bondsman who will be left holding the bag.

如果有可能，保释担保人会找一个被担保人的朋友或家庭成员共同担保。原因很简单，被共同担保的被告人逃跑的概率更小。正如Dennis告诉我的，“在我工作的过程中，我常要应付一些无赖，他们既不怕我也不怕警察，但即便是这样的人还是会对自己的母亲心存畏惧，所以，如果我能让他的母亲用房产做抵押，被告人基本上就会按时出庭。” 同时，一个有共同担保人的被告即使逃跑也更可能被抓住，因为保释担保人会提醒共同担保人要是嫌疑犯找不到了，包袱可不是保释担保人一人背。

Bounty hunters have robust rights to arrest fugitives. They can, for example, lawfully break into a suspect’s home without a warrant, pursue and recover fugitives across state lines without necessity of extradition proceedings, and search and seize without the constraint of the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonableness” requirement. Just like everyone else, however, bounty hunters must obey the criminal statutes. A bounty hunter who uses unreasonable force or mistakenly enters the home of someone who is not a bail jumper is subject to criminal prosecution.

赏金猎人具有逮捕逃犯的坚实权利。比如，他们不需要搜查令就能合法地破门进入嫌疑人家中、无需引渡程序就能实行跨州追捕遣返，不受宪法第四修正案“合理性”要求的约束搜查及扣押逃犯。【 译注：第四修正案，是美国权力法案的一部分，旨在禁止无理搜查和扣押，并要求搜查和扣押状的发出有相当理由的支持。 】但是，赏金猎人仍需像其他人一样服从刑事法规。使用不恰当武力或者误闯非逃保人住宅的赏金猎人将会受到刑事起诉。

The prerogatives of bounty hunters flow from the historical evolution of bail. Bail began in medieval England as a progressive measure to help defendants get out of jail while they waited, sometimes for many months, for a roving judge to show up to conduct a trial. If the local sheriff knew the accused, he might release him on the defendant’s promise to return for the hearing. More often, however, the sheriff would release the accused to the custody of a surety, usually a brother or friend, who guaranteed that the defendant would present himself when the time came.

赏金猎人拥有的特权是保释制度历史演变的结果。取保候审作为起源于中世纪英格兰的一项进步措施，旨在帮助等候巡回法官出席主持审判期间的被告人免除牢狱之灾，这等待时间有时长达数月。如果当地的执法人员认识被告人，他可能会凭被告人的承诺将其释放听候传唤。然而，更多时候，执法人员会将被告人置于担保人的监护之下，担保人通常可以是被告的一个兄弟或者朋友，他保证被告人在审判到来之际会及时出庭。

So, in the common law, custody of the accused was never relinquished but instead was transferred to the surety—the brother became the keeper—which explains the origin of the strong rights bail bondsmen have to pursue and capture escaped defendants. Initially, the surety’s guarantee to the sheriff was simple: If the accused failed to show, the surety would take his place and be judged as if he were the offender.

所以，在普通法中，法院并未解除对被告人的羁押，只是这种责任转移到了担保人手上——兄弟成为了监管人——这也解释了保释担保人所拥有的追捕逃跑被告人这项牢固权利的起源。最初，担保人给执法人员的保证很简单：如果被告人没有在出席庭审，担保人就要接替被告人的位置并接受审判，就像他才是违法的人。

The English system provided lots of incentives for sureties to make certain that the accused showed up for trial, but not a lot of incentive to be a surety. The risk to sureties was lessened when courts began to accept pledges of cash rather than of one’s person, but the system was not perfected until personal surety was slowly replaced by a commercial surety system in the United States. That system put incentives on both sides of the equation. Bondsmen had an incentive both to bail defendants out of jail and to chase them down should they flee. By the end of the 19th century, commercial sureties were the norm in the United States. (The Philippines is the only other country with a similar system.)

英国司法系统给予担保人极大激励，促使其确保被告出席审判，但没有提供足够激励使人愿意为他人担保。当法院开始接受现金抵押保证而不是人身保证的时候，担保人的风险大大减小，但是直到私人担保制逐渐被美国的商业担保制度所取代，这项制度才日渐完善。商业担保制度在这两种情况下对担保人都会产生激励【 编注：原文的字面意思似乎是“该制度在（衡量成本收益的）天平两侧都放上了激励” 】，担保人既有动机将被告人保释出狱，也有动机在被告潜逃时去抓捕他们。19世纪末的美国，商业担保制度已成为常态。（菲律宾是美国之外仅有的一个拥有类似制度的国家。）

Bail was widely admired as a progressive institution when the alternative was jail, but in the 1950s and 60s many judges and law professors began to think that the alternative to bail should be release on a defendant’s own recognizance. Bail looked increasingly like a conservative institution that kept people, especially poor people, in jail. Many opinion makers came to support the creation of pretrial services agencies that would investigate defendants and recommend to judges whether they could be safely released on their own recognizance. In essence, the agencies would replace the judgment of bail bondsmen with the judgment of a professional bureaucracy.

作为一项代替羁押的先进制度，保释制广受美誉，但是在1950年代和60年代，许多法官和法学教授开始认为，保释应由被告人自行具结所取代。保释越发看起来像是把人——特别是穷人——关进监狱的保守制度。许多意见领袖开始站出来支持创建审前服务机构，这些机构会调查被告人并建议法官他们能否自行具结从而得以安全释放。本质上，这种机构将会用专业官僚制度取代保释担保人的判断。

In the early 1960s, the Vera Institute of Justice’s Manhattan Bail Project in New York City began gathering information about local defendants’ community ties and residential and employment stability and summarizing it in a numerical scoring system that it used to identify those who could be recommended for release on their own recognizance. The experiment was successful. The failure-to-appear rate among felony defendants the project recommended for release was no higher than the rate among those released on bail. Largely on the basis of these results, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1966, which created a presumption in favor of releasing defendants on their own recognizance.

1960年代早期，纽约市的维拉司法研究所（Vera Institute of Justice）开展的曼哈顿保释实验（Manhattan Bail Project）就开始收集当地被告人的社区关系、居住、就业稳定性方面的信息，并且总结了一套用于辨别个人是否可以被认可为通过自行具结即可获释的打分系统。这个实验很成功。实验建议释放的身负重罪者的未出庭率不高于那些因保释释放的群体。很大程度上基于这些结果，美国总统林登 · 约翰逊（Lyndon B. Johnson）签署了1966年的联邦保释改革法，这项法律为支持释放自行具结被告人创造了前提。

Although the new law applied only to the federal courts, the states have widely emulated the reforms. Every state now has some kind of pretrial services program, and four (Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon, and Wisconsin) have outlawed commercial bail altogether. In its place, Illinois introduced the government bail or “deposit bond” system. The defendant is required to deposit with the court a small percentage of the face value of the bond.

尽管新法仅适用于联邦法院中，但是各州已广泛仿效这项改革。如今，每个州都拥有某些审前服务计划，其中四个州（伊利诺斯、肯塔基、俄勒冈和威斯康辛）已经宣布商业保释制度不合法。在其辖区内，伊利诺斯州引进了一套被称为政府保释或“担保债券”（depositbond）的制度。它要求被告将债券面值的一小部分交存法院。

If the defendant fails to appear, he may lose the deposit and be held liable for the full value of the bond. But while a defendant in a commercial bail system who shows up in court must still pay the bondsman a fee, those who do so in jurisdictions with systems like Illinois’s get all their money back (less a small service fee in some cases). And the only people empowered to chase down a defendant who has fled are the police.

如果被告人没能出席，他将失去交存法院的那部分存款并对债券的全部面值负责。而在商业保释制度下的被告人，即使在出席了庭审的情况下仍然必须给担保人支付一定的费用，那些在像伊利诺伊州法律系统的审判权范围内出席庭审的人则可以拿回所有的钱（某些情况下需要支付一点点服务费用）。另外，这种制度下唯一有权追捕逃跑被告的是警察。

The results of the Manhattan Bail Project seemed to support the position of progressives who argued that commercial bail was unnecessary. But all that the findings really demonstrated was that a few carefully selected felony defendants could be safely released on their own recognizance. In reality, the project allowed relatively few defendants to be let go and so could easily cherry pick those who were most likely to appear at trial. As pretrial release programs expanded in the late 1960s and early 70s, failure-to-appear rates increased.

曼哈顿保释实验的结果看似支持那种认为商业保释多余的进步主义立场。然而其发现所证明的不过是：一些精心挑选出来的重罪被告能够以自行具结安全释放。事实上，此实验只给了相对较少的被告以自由，因而挑选那些极有可能出庭的人就不是什么难事。 随着1960年代末70年代初审前释放计划的展开，未出庭率就上升了。

Today, when a defendant fails to appear, an arrest warrant is issued. But if the defendant was released on his own recognizance or on government bail, very little else happens. In many states and cities, the police are overwhelmed with outstanding arrest warrants. In California, about two million warrants have gone unserved. Many are for minor offenses, but hundreds of thousands are for felonies, including thousands of homicides.

如今，只要被告人没能出席，逮捕令便会签发。但是如果被告人是以自行具结或政府保释而被释放的，逮捕令往往不会起到什么作用。在许多州和城市中，警察面对大把大把未执行的逮捕令而焦头烂额。在加利福尼亚州，约有两百万张逮捕令未被执行。他们当中大多只是轻罪，但是仍有几十万人是重罪犯，其中还包括数以千计的杀人犯。

In Philadelphia, where commercial bail has been regulated out of existence, The Philadelphia Inquirer recently found that “fugitives jump bail . . . with virtual impunity.” At the end of 2009, the City of Brotherly Love had more than 47,000 unserved arrest warrants. About the only time the city’s bail jumpers are recaptured is when they are arrested for some other crime. One would expect that a criminal on the lam would be careful not to get caught speeding, but foresight is rarely a prominent characteristic of bail jumpers. Routine stops ensnare more than a few of them. When the jails are crowded, however, even serial bail jumpers are often released.

在法律规定商业保释非法的费城，《费城问询报（The Philadelphia Inquirer）》最近发现“逃犯逃保…实际上不受惩罚。”2009年年底，这个友爱之城【 译注：费城又被称为友爱之城（City of Brotherly Love）/span>】尚有超过47, 000张未执行的逮捕令。只有因犯下其他罪行而被逮捕，这个城市的逃保者才会被重新逮捕。有人可能以为潜逃的罪犯会小心行事以免被抓到超速马上再次被捕，但是拥有如此先见之明的逃保者少之又少。例行拦车检查抓住了他们中的不少人。当监狱人满为患时，即使是屡次逃保的罪犯通常也可以得到释放。 The backlog of unserved warrants has become so bad that Philadelphia and many other cities with similar systems, including Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, and Phoenix, have held “safe surrender” days when fugitives are promised leniency if they turn themselves in at a local church or other neutral location. (Some safe surrender programs even advertise on-site child care.) That’s good for the fugitives, but for victims of crime, both past and future, justice delayed is justice denied.

未执行逮捕令的积压问题越来越严峻，像费城还有其他许多拥有类似制度的城市，如华盛顿特区、印第安纳波利斯和凤凰城，已经设立“安全自首日”，当逃犯去教堂或其他中间地带自首时承诺给他们从轻发落（一些安全自首计划甚至打出代为照顾孩子的广告）。对于逃亡者来说固然很好，但对于犯罪行为的受害者——无论过去的还是将来的——，迟来的正义即非正义。

Unserved warrants tend not to pile up in jurisdictions with commercial bondsmen. In those places, the bail bond agent is on the hook for the bond and thus has a strong incentive to bring those who jump bail to justice. My interest in commercial bail and bounty hunting began when economist Eric Helland and I used data on 36,231 felony defendants released between 1988 and 1996 to investigate the differences between the public and private systems of bail and fugitive recovery. Our study, published in The Journal of Law and Economics in 2004, is the largest and most comprehensive ever written on the bail system.

存在商业担保人的司法辖区内，未执行逮捕令一般不会积压成山。在那些地区，保释担保机构负担保释金，从而他们有着极其强烈的动机将逃保者带上法庭。经济学家Eric Helland和我曾使用1988至1996年间释放的36，231个重罪犯的数据来调查政府和私人保释及追逃系统的差别，我对商业保释和赏金追捕的兴趣就是从那时候开始的。我们的研究成果发表在了2004年的The Journal of Law and Economics杂志上，也是迄今关于保释制度最详细并且最全面的文章。

Our research backs up what I found on the street: Bail bondsmen and bounty hunters get their charges to show up for trial, and they recapture them quickly when they do flee. Nationally, the failure-to-appear rate for defendants released on commercial bail is 28 percent lower than the rate for defendants released on their own recognizance, and 18 percent lower than the rate for those released on government bond.

我们的研究印证了我在现实经验中的发现：保释担保人和赏金猎人使被告人按时出庭，一旦被告人逃保，他们也能及时将他们绳之以法。就全国而言，在商业保释中释放的被告人未出庭率比以自我担保形式保释的未出庭率低28%，比以政府担保形式释放的未出庭率低了18%。

Even more important, when a defendant does skip town, the bounty hunters are the ones who pursue justice with the greatest determination and energy. Defendants sought by bounty hunters are a whopping 50 percent less likely to be on the loose after one year than other bail jumpers.

更重要的是，当被告人真的逃保了，赏金猎人会怀着极大的决心和精力去伸张正义。那些被赏金猎人追捕的被告人在一年之后仍逍遥法外的概率比其他逃保者低了惊人的50%。

In addition to being effective, bail bondsmen and bounty hunters work at no cost to the taxpayers. The public reaps a double benefit, because when a bounty hunter fails to find his man, the bond is forfeit to the government. Because billions of dollars of bail are written every year and not every fugitive is caught, bond forfeits are a small but welcome source of revenue.

除了富有效率之外，保释担保人和赏金猎人是在没有花费纳税人一分钱的条件下工作的。公众获得了双重好处，因为赏金猎人没能找到他的目标的话，政府便会没收保释金。因为每年开出了数十亿的保释金，并且不是每一个逃犯都能被捉拿归案，没收的保释金虽然不多，也是一笔相当可观的收入。

At the federal level, forfeits help fund the Crime Victim Fund, which does what its name suggests, and in states such as Virginia and North Carolina they yield millions of dollars for public schools. Indeed, budget shortfalls around the nation are leading to a reconsideration of commercial bail. Oregon, which banned commercial bail in 1974, is considering a controversial bill to reinstate it, and even Illinois, nearly 50 years after establishing its alternative system, may once again allow bail bondsmen.

从联邦层面来说，罚没金可用以资助犯罪受害人基金（Crime Victim Fund），其作用顾名思义。同时，在弗吉尼亚和北卡罗来纳等州罚没金资助了公立学校几百万美元。事实上，全国性的预算赤字迫使人们重新考虑商业保释。1974年就禁止了商业保释的俄勒冈州，现在正考虑通过一项颇具争议的法案来恢复它，甚至连伊利诺斯州在建立起替代制度近五十年后，也可能会再一次允许保释担保人的存在。

Bail bondsmen monitor defendants, guide them through the court process, and help them show up for trial. When defendants skip town, it’s the bounty hunters who track them down. But despite the benefits of commercial bail, bondsmen and bounty hunters don’t get a lot of thanks. The American Bar Association has said that the commercial bail business is “tawdry,” and Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun once called it “odorous.”

保释担保人监视着被告人，引导他们通过法律程序，并且帮他们按时出庭。当被告逃跑了，正是赏金猎人去追捕他们。但是除了商业保释能够带来的收益之外，担保人和赏金猎人没得到什么感谢。美国律师协会就曾经评论商业保释行业“道德低下”，最高法院法官Harry Blackmun也曾称之为“浑身散发臭气”。

After Dog Chapman arrested the serial rapist Andrew Luster and delivered him to the Mexican police, Dog was the one who ended up in jail. Bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico, and Chapman was charged with kidnapping despite the fact that (according to him) he had a local police officer with him at the time of the arrest. It surely didn't help Chapman’s case that he was not trying to recover a bond that he had posted, since Luster had put up his own money. Luster was quickly extradited by the FBI, which offered Chapman no gratitude or assistance with the Mexican authorities. As if to rub salt in the wound, the judge in the Luster case refused even to reimburse Chapman for his expenses out of the $1 million Luster had forfeited.

在Dog Chapman逮捕了连环强奸案犯Andrew Luster并将其移交至墨西哥警方之后，他自己却被投入监狱。赏金猎人在墨西哥是不合法的，而墨西哥方面不顾在抓捕现场有一名当地警员陪同的事实（根据Dog Chapman的说法）而指控他绑架罪。在Chapman的案件中，他并非在追回他所支付的担保这一事实显然对他极为不利，因为Luster是用自己的钱做的担保。很快，Luster就被FBI引渡回国，对于Chapman，FBI并未对他表示任何感激，或者在与墨西哥当局交涉中提供协助。在Luster一案中，法官甚至拒绝从Luster被没收的一百万美元中拿出一部分偿付Chapman的开销，真有点伤口上撒盐的味道。

Dog Chapman’s television show has brought him and the bail bond industry plenty of fame and notoriety, but Chapman is a controversial figure among bondsmen. The famed bounty hunter’s checkered history includes prison time, drug abuse, and charges of racism, and many bondsmen think that “Dog” doesn't do much for their image. Bondsmen don’t want to be the dogs of criminal justice; they want to be recognized as professionals working alongside police, lawyers, and judges. They are tired of being called “odorous.” Bounty hunters want some respect. The record shows that they've earned it.

尽管Dog Chapman的电视秀已经带给他本人和保释担保行业无数毁誉，在保释担保人圈子里Chapman仍是一个颇具争议的人物。这位著名的赏金猎人波澜起伏的经历包括蹲监狱、滥用药物和种族歧视指控，许多保释担保人认为Chapman并没有为改善他们的形象做多少努力。担保人不想成为刑事审判的走狗；他们更希望被视为同警察、律师和法官合作的专业人士。他们厌倦了“浑身散发臭气”的名声。赏金猎人希望得到一些尊重。而事实表明，他们也应当得到这份尊重。

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