> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://mike-morrison-public-safety-and-accountability.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Where Is the Weakest Link in the Criminal Justice System? - URL: https://mike-morrison-public-safety-and-accountability.ghost.io/where-is-the-weakest-link-in-the-criminal-justice-system/ - Published: 2026-11-08T00:32:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-08T02:16:38.000Z - Author: Michael D. Morrison - Tags: accountability, court accountability, Court System, Criminal Justice, failure to appear, Michael D. Morrison, Mike Morrison Bail Bonding, prosecution, Public Safety ***Every member of the team has one assignment. The breakdown begins when one of them steps outside it.*** The criminal justice system works best when every party is working equally on its own assignment. Think of it as a team. Team Criminal Justice is made up of law enforcement, jails and jailers, court staff and judges, Professional Surety Bail Agents, and the departments of corrections. Each member has a specific job, and when each one stays inside its boundaries and does that job well, the system holds together. When one of them steps outside those boundaries, that is when we begin to see problems. Law enforcement has one assignment: enforce the law and bring those accused of a crime into the system. The jail has one assignment as well. Its responsibility is to house and protect those placed inside until they are released, and it has no other assignment. The jail does not decide who comes in, and it does not decide who goes home. These two members of the team do their work at the front door, and what happens next is in someone else’s hands. That someone is the court. The court decides whether an individual is able to be released and whether that person is a risk to the community. This is where the first breakdown begins. In many places, judges have been handed political release policies that push them to release everyone, no matter what the defendant has done or how many times his actions have placed him in the system before. A defendant’s history should matter. When a policy replaces judgment, the judge is no longer free to weigh the risk to the public, and the community is left to carry the consequences. Many of these policies lean on computer risk assessment tools that score a defendant and recommend whether to release him. Harvard Law School’s Access to Justice Lab studied one of the most widely used of these tools, the Public Safety Assessment, in Dane County, Wisconsin, and found no solid evidence that it improved public safety or reduced the time people spent in jail before trial. A score produced by a formula is no substitute for a judge weighing the person standing in front of the court. The findings are here: https://captimes.com/news/government/dane-county-s-risk-assessments-for-bail-don-t-work-harvard-lab-says/article\_ca01a90c-7f40-4666-a03d-a6618345881e.html The release method is also the court’s responsibility. A judge can release the defendant on his own recognizance, which is simply his promise to come back, with no one responsible for making sure he does. The judge can also require a surety bond, where a licensed bail agent guarantees the court that the defendant will make every required appearance and is held responsible if he does not. A third option, the cash bond, requires the defendant to post the full amount with the court himself. This is where the second breakdown occurs. The system does not require courts to track and report the results of their release decisions, so no one, including the judges themselves, knows whether those decisions are working. Every court should be publishing how many defendants return to court under each type of release, so the public can see what is working and what is not. Without those numbers, there is no accountability, and that is a failure to the taxpayers who fund the courts and entrust them to do their jobs. Courts should be held to the same standard as bail agents: https://mike-morrison-public-safety-and-accountability.ghost.io/courts-should-be-held-to-the-same-standard-as-bail-agents/ Surety bail has the best record of any type of release for getting defendants back to court. In a study published in the Journal of Law and Economics, economists Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok found that defendants released on a surety bond are 28 percent less likely to fail to appear than similar defendants released on their own recognizance, and that the chance of a defendant becoming a fugitive is 64 percent lower on a surety bond than on a cash bond. Bail has one assignment: make sure the defendant is at every scheduled appearance. The results show that assignment is being carried out. The study is here: https://mason.gmu.edu/\~atabarro/PublicvsPrivate.pdf The department of corrections is the final member of the team, and it too has one assignment. When a court decides that an individual is a risk to public safety and sentences that defendant to spend time in prison to reflect on his behavior and choices, the department is responsible for housing him for that time. Like the jail, it does not choose who arrives at its gate. It carries out the decision the court has already made. So where is the weakest link? It is not the individual judge. It is the court system judges have been handed, one that pushes policy ahead of judgment and never measures whether release decisions worked. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and it does not matter how well every other member of the team does its job if the link in the middle cannot hold. Every other member of Team Criminal Justice answers for its work. The public lives with the outcome of every release decision, and it deserves a court system that lets judges weigh the person standing in front of them and is held accountable for whether those decisions are working. Until that happens, the weakest link will stay exactly where it is. About the Author Mike Morrison is the 2026 PBUS National Bail Agent of the Year, President of the Mississippi Bail Agents Association, and a nationally recognized bail educator, speaker, and criminal justice commentator. With more than 35 years of hands-on experience as a licensed Professional Bail Agent and owner of Mike Morrison Bail Bonding Company in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, he brings a practical, real-world perspective to discussions involving American legal history, institutional accountability, constitutional rights, public safety, technology, and public policy. Morrison is recognized as a bail trainer by the Mississippi Judicial College and is a sought-after guest speaker for judicial, prosecutorial, and industry conferences across the country. He has presented before state judges, justice court clerks, prosecutors, attorneys general staff, and bail professionals nationwide, and he travels to state bail association conferences to speak on bail and on social media strategy for the profession. He also leads professional education and ethics programs for bail agents through the Master Class Bail Agent Series and other national training initiatives. At the national level, Morrison works with the Professional Bail Agents of the United States (PBUS) Board of Directors and supports its committees on national initiatives. He also works with the boards of directors of other state bail associations, sharing the strategies behind Mississippi’s successes so they can be put to work across the profession. He has published nearly 200 articles examining the institutions, policies, and decisions that affect working Americans. His writing is grounded in decades spent inside courtrooms, jails, communities, and the criminal justice system, and his commentary has surpassed 1.9 million views across social media in 2026. Independent, plain-spoken, and focused on accountability, Morrison writes and speaks about the intersection of government, liberty, public safety, professional responsibility, and the real-world consequences of public policy in Mississippi and across the nation. © 2026 Mike Morrison. All rights reserved.