The Benefits Of Becoming A Career Bail Bondsman

Being a bail bondsman is a viable career path. Here’s some information about what career of being a bondsman entails, including the benefits of following the path and what you need to do to get started, as well as other important general details.

What Does a Bail Bondsman Do?

A bail bondsman is someone who pledges money as a surety that someone will appear in court in terms of bail. Ideally, a person could put up bail themselves to get themselves out of prison, but this isn’t always something that individuals are able to do. The purpose of an individual posting bail is so that the individual has an incentive to actually come back for a court date instead of trying to run and hide, because if they do run and hide then they forfeit the money they put up for bail.

If an individual doesn’t have the money for bail, and if they don’t know anyone else who does either, then they are often out of luck under normal circumstances. And even if an individual has the ability to post bail, it’s often the case that it can take a while for their friends or family to get all of the money together for bail, and in the meantime the accused has to stay in prison.

A bail bondsman can instead get an accused criminal out of jail in just a few hours by having good standing with the court and the funds to secure bail. The bondsman usually makes an agreement with an insurance agency through a bank to show means of paying the bail if the defendant doesn’t show.

A bondsman usually charges 10% of the bond fee for state charges and around 15% for federal charges. The exact fee changes from state to state, and some of the details about how the transaction works from state to state as well.

The bondsman also sometimes charges extra fees if the defendant tries to run since they have to track them down in order to make sure they appear for court so that their investment isn’t lost. Some bondsman specialists do this themselves, but others will hire bounty hunters to help them find running convicts in order to recover some of their fee.

Risks and Rewards Career Path

Many defendants wouldn’t be able to post bond on their own at all, so having access to someone to pay it for them is the only way they could get out of jail while they await trial. In addition, using a bondsman will often get you out of jail much faster than other means of posting bail, so many people are grateful for this side of the service as well.

As long as everything goes off without a hitch, you can often make a considerable amount of money in this career path since 15% of bonds for major crimes can be a lot of money. Many bondsmen may specialize in catering to more serious crimes in order to try to get higher fees. The risk to doing this though is that higher bails often also mean higher flight risk. And if the defendant doesn’t appear in court, all of that initial money is lost.

Becoming a Bondsman

In order to get started on being a bondsman, you need to pass a pre-licensing course, have a diploma or GED, and then pass a state licensing exam. After that, you have to raise the funds needed to complete the job, or work for a company that can. 

John Keefe is an avid blogger and professional bail bondsman in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. John is passionate about sharing information through his online blogs and provides OKC bail bonds services to his local community while working with C & K Bail Bonds.