Mike Morrison Bail Bonding
Why professional associations struggle for participation—and who pays the price when everyone waits for someone else to lead. One of the greatest challenges facing professional associations is not always the opposition they face from outside. Sometimes it is the lack of participation from the very people whose livelihoods they
accountability
Beyond the headlines: Why Tennessee's Amendment 1 carries a hidden price tag for families, jails, and taxpayers. The public discussion has focused heavily on a handful of serious crimes. The actual constitutional language goes much further. Amendment 1 would allow bail to be denied, when “the proof is
Bail Enforcement
Beyond the Paper: Why Bail Enforcement is the Essential Anchor of Pretrial Accountability How private surety bonds, statutory authority under Mississippi law, and dedicated recovery agents keep the criminal justice system functioning. Most people understand what happens when a bail bond gets someone out of jail. Very few understand what
Bail Bonds
Mississippi law is clear that professional surety bail is a lawful method of securing a defendant’s release. Article 3, Section 29 of the Mississippi Constitution says that persons entitled to bail before conviction shall be “bailable by sufficient sureties.” Rule 8.1 of the Mississippi Rules of Criminal Procedure
accountability
Constitutional amendments deserve more scrutiny than ordinary legislation because they do not simply change a statute. They change the governing document itself. Tennessee voters will face that decision on November 3, 2026, when Amendment 1 asks them to substantially expand the circumstances in which a person accused of a crime
Criminal Justice
The Questions that No Crime Summit is willing to Ask! Mississippi changed sentencing, bail, fine enforcement, driver’s-license consequences, and criminal procedure. What happened when all of those changes began operating at the same time? For more than a decade, Mississippi has transformed its criminal justice architecture. Some changes
accountability
The New York Post just published a clear-eyed takedown of the “evidence-based” diversion model that helped shape bail reform and soft-on-crime policies across blue cities. The numbers never matched the marketing. Ari Hoffman’s recent New York Post opinion piece lays out what many of us
accountability
The future of professional surety bail will not be determined only by the battles we win today, but by what we leave capable of confronting tomorrow. The first three discussions in this series examined the political environment surrounding professional surety bail, the capacity required to operate within it, and the
accountability
What Would Machiavelli Tell the Bail Profession?Five centuries after Niccolò Machiavelli wrote about power, perception, alliances, and survival, his lessons raise uncomfortable questions for professional surety bail. Niccolò Machiavelli died nearly five hundred years ago, long before television, social media, political action committees, professional associations, or the modern American
accountability
The first two discussions focused on recognizing the political environment around professional surety bail and building the capacity to operate within it. The next step is influence—and influence depends on whether the profession can make itself useful beyond its own interests. Professional surety bail operates inside a much larger
accountability
Recognizing the forces surrounding professional surety bail is only the beginning. The harder question is whether the profession has built the capacity to do anything about them. In the first discussion, What Would Machiavelli Tell the Bail Profession?, I used Niccolò Machiavelli to examine the political environment surrounding professional surety
accountability
Five centuries after Niccolò Machiavelli wrote about power, perception, alliances, and survival, his lessons raise uncomfortable questions for professional surety bail. Niccolò Machiavelli died nearly five hundred years ago, long before television, social media, political action committees, professional associations, or the modern American criminal justice system. He knew nothing about