An Open Letter to Every Licensed Bail Agent in California: It Is Time to Decide Who We Are

Before I say what I am about to say, I want to be clear about something.

The large bail companies in California have done real things for this industry. When the no-cash-bail movement was gaining momentum — SB 10, the AB fights, all of it — it was the big players who funded the associations, ran the campaigns, and helped keep cash bail alive in this state. That matters. I am not going to pretend it doesn't.

But here is the truth that nobody wants to say out loud: those same companies are also stepping on the throats of every small independent agent in this business. And to them, that is not a contradiction. To a large corporation with multiple departments and a compliance team and a lobbying budget, this is just business. It is not personal. It is not a moral question. It is a market share question.

To me, it is a moral question. And I think it should be for all of us.

Right now in California, we have the CBAA — the California Bail Agents Association. It has done powerful, important work for this industry. I respect what it has accomplished.

But here is the problem: I do not think you could find ten percent of licensed bail agents in this state who are actively involved in any industry association. Ten percent. In an industry that is fighting for its survival against no-cash-bail legislation, against predatory competitors, against a public that increasingly does not understand what we do or why we exist.

Why is participation so low? I have thought about this a lot. And I think the honest answer is this: the association has not laid out a clear mission statement for who bail agents are supposed to be. It has not defined the ethics and morals that every member is expected to uphold. And it has not shown a willingness to call out members — even powerful, well-funded members — who violate those standards.

So agents look at it and think: what am I joining, exactly? What does membership mean? What does this organization stand for beyond fighting legislation?

If you cannot answer those questions clearly, people do not show up.

The Marine Corps has a creed. Every serious organization has a mission statement — not a tagline, but a real declaration of values that members are held to.

Imagine if the bail industry had one. Not just words on a website, but a genuine standard: this is who we are, this is how we treat clients, this is what we will not do regardless of whether it is technically legal, and this is what happens when a member violates it.

We cannot put anyone in jail. We cannot revoke licenses — that is the Department of Insurance's job. But we can do something that is actually more powerful in a reputation-driven industry: we can name it. We can say publicly, as an organized body of licensed professionals, that a specific practice violates who we said we were. And we can let the consumer decide.

Consumers are not powerless. They just need information. If the industry gave them a clear standard to measure agents against, the market would do a lot of the enforcement work on its own.

Here is what happens if we do nothing. I have watched this pattern long enough to know how it ends.

Path one: the small agents who are getting squeezed keep getting more frustrated. Some of them go to their local council member or assembly representative. That person — who does not understand our industry — writes a broad law that was aimed at one problem and hits five others. The big companies absorb it. The small agents get regulated out. The problem that started everything is still happening.

Path two: some of the small agents who cannot beat the big companies decide to join them. They adopt the same practices. The scraping, the cold calling, the pressure tactics. The race to the bottom accelerates. The industry becomes what the critics always said it was.

Path three: the industry actually decides. It writes down who it is. It builds an association that agents want to join because membership means something. It calls out bad actors by name — or at least by practice — and lets the public know the difference between agents who uphold the standard and agents who do not.

Path three is the only one that ends well. But it requires people to actually show up.

I know what it costs to say this publicly. I know who the big players are. I know they have resources I do not have. I know that a small independent agent in Southern California calling out industry practices is not the safe play.

I am doing it anyway. Because somebody has to. And because I have been in this industry long enough to know that the version of it I believed in — the one that showed up at 3am, that kept secrets, that treated clients like human beings in a crisis — is worth fighting for.

If you are a licensed bail agent in California and you are reading this, I am asking you directly: get involved. Join the CBAA. Show up to the meetings. Push for a mission statement that has teeth. Vote. Raise your hand. Be one of the ten percent — and then help make it twenty, and then fifty.

The window to fix this from the inside is still open. It will not stay open forever.

And if you are a family who needs bail right now — not a cold call, not a scraper, not a company in another country — call me. I am the kind of agent this industry is supposed to produce. I answer the phone. I tell the truth. And I have been doing this long enough to know the difference between a sale and a responsibility.