On any given morning, bail bondsmen Peg Richards and Ray Nix can be found at the New London courthouse on Broad Street, looking over the court docket, fielding phone calls and speaking to defendants waiting to be seen by a judge.

Business is not what it used to be, and both Nix and Richards attribute the drop in profits to incremental changes to the state’s bail system over the past several years that have lowered the amount of cash a criminal defendant needs to secure release after an arrest and made it easier and more attractive to bypass a bail bondsman.

Advocates of the changes say the reforms are helping to keep people with fewer resources from sitting in prison while their case is pending.

In 2020, the Rules Committee of the Superior Court created an automatic option for defendants to use cash to post 10% of bonds $20,000 or less. The option became available at the time a defendant is booked at the police department or at court. Previously, the option for a cash bond payment came at the discretion of the court.

Changes to the Connecticut Practice Book that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024, further reduced the automatic 10% cash option to 7% and increased the eligibility to bonds of $50,000 or less.

The result is less money flowing to the bail bond industry and, in theory, more money going back into the pockets of defendants who show up in court. When someone pays their own bond and appears in court, the money eventually is handed back. Bail bondsmen, on the other hand, keep the money and by state rules must also charge an additional $150 fee.

A 2022 study by the Connecticut Sentencing Commission showed that the use of bail bondsmen was cut in half from 40% to 20% between 2019 and 2021. The Connecticut Sentencing Commission is an independent state criminal justice agency that reviews the state’s criminal sentencing structure and makes recommendations on changes.

Nix, a bondsman with Statewide Bail Bonds, said the smaller bail amounts were the industry’s bread and butter and the loss of revenue is likely to impact the ability of bond companies to track and capture people who skip bond. He thinks it’s likely to have an effect on public safety.

Bail bondsmen can offer payment plans to defendants, which Nix said makes bondsmen more attractive to people facing higher bonds. In 2023, in response to a push from leaders of Connecticut cities where gun violence has risen, state legislators passed a measure that forces repeat gun offenders to post 30% of a of bond in cash.

Nix and Richards, who is an independent bail bondsman, both said they think changes to the system could lead to more people on the street skipping court dates and probably re-offending with few consequences.

“If I don’t find these people, I lose money. The state has zero incentive,” said Nix, who also performs bail enforcement and runs the forfeiture department for Statewide Bail Bonds.

Critics of the state’s cash bail system, however, say the current system criminalizes poverty by keeping people accused of even low-level crimes in prison pretrial while allowing those charged with the most heinous crimes to return home while their cases are pending if they have the money.

State Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, House Chair of the Judiciary Committee, said by email that reexamining and reforming the state’s bail infrastructure, which would take a change to the state’s constitution, remains a top legislative priority for him.

The state, he said, has an inability to detain people accused of committing violent crimes “though we keep poor and low-income people locked up pretrial who are not dangerous but cannot afford bail.”

One of the major hurdles in changing the state’s current system is the fact the right to reasonable bail, except in cases of capital felonies, is written into the state’s constitution. Since the state no longer has capital felonies, there is no option in Connecticut to hold someone without bond.

A proposal to amend the state constitution passed out of committee during the 2024 legislative session but was never called for a vote on the House floor. Constitutional amendments must pass through the House and Senate with three-fourths majority support, or a simple majority in two successive legislative terms, Stafstrom said.

“They then have to garner majority support among voters. While this is a long process, it is also a much-needed one. Bail reform is coming to our state, and it is not a matter of if but when it does,” Stafstrom said.

Just how drastic those changes might be is unknown, but some have advocated for a system similar to New Jersey’s. The Garden State revised its system in 2017 to one that eliminates cash bail as a primary requirement for pretrial release and uses a risk-based assessment system to release low-level offenders without bail and hold high-risk offenders without bail.

Michael Lawlor, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven and former state legislator, has pushed for bail reform for years.

In addition to putting money into the pockets of for-profit bail bond companies, Lawlor said the state continues to spend money to incarcerate low-risk defendants who simply can’t afford to post bond.

He is an advocate of a change to the risk-based assessment system.

“The end result would be more demonstrably dangerous people being incarcerated rather than out on bail posted by a bail bondsman, and fewer low level, low risk folks being locked up for a week or a month or two because they can't come up with any money to hire a bail bondsman,” Lawlor said.

Department of Correction statistics, as of August, show that 3,849 of the 10,806 people in prison are being held pre-trial and 368 of those pretrial detainees have bonds less than $20,000.

“Meaning they can’t come up with a few hundred dollars,” Lawlor said. “I don’t think any amount of money should dictate how long you sit in jail.”

Alex Tsarkov, executive director of the Connecticut Sentencing Commission, said Connecticut needs only look to New Jersey for an example of a what a new system could look like.

Tsarkov said there is momentum nationwide to take a harder look at the costs of locking so many people up pre-trial simply because they don’t have the means to bond themselves out. The Connecticut Sentencing Commission, an independent state criminal justice agency that studies and proposes changes to the state’s criminal sentencing structure, in a 2017 report on pre-trial release and detention, showed that pretrial detention had devastating effects on a person’s employment, family life, medical care and disproportionately affected people of color. Additionally, pretrial detention, the study showed, was cause to pressure defendants into pleading guilty.

Tsarkov said allowing defendants to recoup deposits on bonds was one of the motivating factors in recommending the 10% bond reform, he said.

State Rep. Greg Howard, R-Stonington, a Stonington police detective and member of the Judiciary Committee, said he agrees with the basis for some of the proposed changes.

“The amount of money you have should not be a consideration whether you sit in jail or not,” Howard said. “I agree with that basic premise, but unlike some of my colleagues I look at the bigger picture.”

But Howard said there are other factors that give him pause in voting for sweeping changes to the current system. A system like those in New Jersey or New York allows low-level and repeat offenders free to continue to commit crimes, he said.

Howard said he is also not convinced that the state should completely do away with bail bondsmen. The state, he said is not going to expend the time, money or resources to track down a defendant who skipped bond where a bail bonds company would because they have more money at stake.

“The bondsmen, a private business, can pick (a defendant) up an bring them back at no cost to the taxpayer," he said.

“How about a shoplifter who gets out and keeps recommitting. Is he a danger? Maybe not, but he’s a menace. When these people abscond to another state, how do we get them back?” Howard said.

“My concern becomes, knowing Connecticut, if we pass a constitutional amendment, I know nobody's going to get held accountable. We're going to have crime all over the place. Are we going to tell the criminal element in Connecticut you're going to get out for anything short of homicide?" Howard said.

At the courthouse in New London, Richards said while she is empathetic to her clients’ problems, she also worries about public safety in the event the state allows more defendants out without bond.

Richards said she is available any time of the day or night and fields calls before and after someone is arrested, often taking questions from anxious clients.

Richards is a former paralegal and case manager for a mental health facility who started working in the bail bond industry about 10 years ago. She said there are times when she has to persuade people to turn themselves in, explaining the ramifications of becoming a fugitive from justice.

“We’re like case managers in many ways,” she said.

She follows up with the defendants with weekly phone calls to ensure court appearances or to find out how someone is doing. Richards will also help get someone into therapy or detox or to find an attorney.

“It’s not just cutting them loose. I want to know where these people are. If they go missing, I’m the first to know. The state doesn’t have the time or resources to keep track of these people.” Richards said.

Legislation to amend the state’s constitution was opposed by both the Office of Chief Public Defender and Division of Criminal Justice, but for different reasons.

The Division of Criminal Justice, in written testimony, said “more work needs to be done before considering a change to the state constitution.”

“The Division’s own study of the issue has made clear that any new risk-based system requiring a release determination and possible hearing in criminal cases will necessitate significant and fundamental changes to the operations of the Judicial Branch, the Office of the Public Defender, Court Support Services Division, victim organization, and law enforcement, among others,” the unsigned statement reads.

Deborah Del Prete Sullivan, legal counsel for the Office of Public Defender, submitted testimony calling the legislation premature “without specific details worked out beforehand to avoid substantial and detrimental impact upon this agency’s indigent clients and the most vulnerable people in this state, including people of color.”

g.smith@theday.com