“Public defenders are overworked”
Excerpt from Nina, a bail bonds agent working near the Hall of Justice in spring 2022.
Interviewer: […] Do you think the state should spend more or less money on the courts?
Nina: I th-- I mean, I think the public defenders are way overworked. So, I wouldn't mind them … because a lot of people fall through the cracks. You know, like if you don't have enough to pay for a lawyer, you get a public defender. And it's not like they don't want to help. They do want to help, but they're just overworked. Like, I've gotten a lot of calls from public defenders asking for, you know, help. And if we can, yeah. You know, if it's not against policy, yeah, we'll try to help because they're so overworked--
Interviewer: Right.
Nina: You know, they tend to be good people. They really do. Like, I've received calls from them asking like, “Okay, I want to bail this guy out. You know, he deserves another chance. Like, how can you help us?” Like, okay, you know, we need to get him. Like, maybe we can give him a discount because he paid this, uh, he paid this bond. He's in there for the same, you know, for the same case. Like, we can give him a rebate … and stuff like that. So, they do care. Um, I think that if they're spending that much money, and they're still that overworked, like, maybe, I don't know, like, maybe … cut corners somewhere else where it doesn't actually affect the public. But I don't know that much about how the courts work, like, who they have working there, like, maybe the court's clerks that don't actually deal with cases that are filing—I don't know how much they earn, but, you know, I'm guessing they don't earn all that much either. So, it's—it's kind of hard.
Interviewer: Right. Are there any other, um, places in the courts that come to mind that you think you would like to see changed in terms of the funding that they're given?
Nina: Umm. I think they're barely making it, frankly.
Interviewer: Right.
Nina: Yeah, um. No, not really. Like, everything seems to be in place, you know? It's just they're overworked. Like, maybe have more people in booking, because booking is the department that bails these people out. And sometimes we're ten bail agents with one booking department person, and they—they have other things to do, you know, and sometimes they're so understaffed, we can't get information to bail someone out. Granted, a lot of these people shouldn't even be bailed out, but, you know, we have to do our jobs.
