LAS VEGAS -- Movies and TV shows have glorified bounty hunters. They are shown using strong-arm tactics to bring in defendants who have skipped bail. The real people working in the industry have gathered in Las Vegas for the annual bail agent conference.
There are 15,000 licensed bail agents in the country and more than half are women. The bail agents at the conference say they are staying busy because more people are going to jail.
"We are in more demand simply because they have raised the amounts of bail on felonies and misdemeanors," Gino Caruso, the owner of Goodfellas Bail Bonds, said.
Most people do not know what bail agents and bounty hunters can legally do. Caruso calls himself an adult babysitter. He is responsible for making sure the defendant who agreed to pay 15 percent of the bail to get out of jail pays the money and shows up for his court appearance. If the defendant doesn't, the bounty hunter or recovery agent gets called. Many bail agents are also licensed bounty hunters. They can retrieve people who owe them money.
"A recovery agent is someone whose sole focus is to receive client referrals from bail bond companies. ‘I need this guy. He has got a $10,000 bond. He failed to appear. We think he is over here in Georgia. We need you to track him down and bring him back to court.'" Executive Vice-President of American Surety Company Mike Whitlock said.
The bounty hunter has to be licensed in that state to retrieve a defendant. A law that is often broken. Three local bounty hunters ended up in jail themselves after crossing into El Salvador to pick up a defendant in 2005.
Bail bondsmen have an incentive to get their man. If they do not find their client, they are stuck paying the whole bond. For a first-offense DUI, it can be $2,000. For a felony, it could be $10,000 or $20,000.
"We actually have a 99.5 percent success rate. We rarely pay forfeitures and we can pretty much find anybody now with the technology that is out there," Caruso said.
Las Vegas has more than 100 bail agents, which is more than most cities its size.
"You have a lot of transients, a lot of vacationers, so everybody who comes here is going back home, and you find yourself working with parents and relatives out of state a lot," Whitlock said.
