If you’re a good judge of character, adept at handling money, and like both dealing with money and people, becoming a New Jersey bail bonds agent might be the career for you. But even more importantly than the skills needed for the job is the impact you can have on people’s lives as a bail bonds agent. You probably never thought of it that way before but you can make a huge impact.
When someone’s arrested and a judge sets a bail amount for them, they have a couple of choices. They can choose not to pay the bail amount (or maybe don’t have the money to) and they’ll stay in jail until their trial. Or they can pay the bail amount, be released, and continue their life as if nothing was wrong – until the date of their trial.
If they can’t afford to pay for the bail amount themselves or with their assets and no family member or friend can or will pay the amount, then they still have another chance. They can hire a bail bonds agency. The defendant will only pay 10% of the bail amount as a fee to the bail bonds agent and the agency then pays the full bail amount to the court.
That bail bonds agent could be you. If a defendant has to stay in jail for the entire time before their trial, they obviously won’t be able to work. They might lose their house, job, and even their family – and that’s all before they’ve even been proven guilty. You’re giving people a chance to keep their lives together until they can be tried fairly. It’s a pretty noble cause.
With that noble cause, there’s also some risk. This is where you need to be a good judge of character. There’s always a chance that the defendant may skip their trial. If that happens, you (the bonds agent) won’t get the bail money back from the court. Now, it’s your responsibility to return the defendant to the courts within 90 days or the money will be gone forever. You need to hire a bounty hunter and you need to hold the defendant’s family accountable for the bail amount and the bounty hunter fees (you’ll have them sign a contract up front). But now, instead of helping someone keep their life together, you’re financially ruining that person’s family or friend.
It’s better to learn to judge up front and not work with anyone you even have the smallest inkling may run. You’ll save a lot of time, money, and headache.
So if you think this is the type of work you’d be good at, you can make a living doing it. At first, you won’t make much, working for big agencies to learn the ropes. But, once you learn and make contacts, you’ll be able to increase your earnings. Just be honest with yourself and your ability to read people – it can make or break you as a New Jersey bail bonds agent.
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