Bail is the dollar amount set by a judge after someone is charged with a crime. If that person pays the bail amount they are free to leave the jail. The money is returned to them when they return to their scheduled court date. A bond is issued by a private company when a person cannot afford the full bail amount. The money is still returned to the person when they make their court date, but the bondsman keeps 10%. Tldr bail is the amount set by the judge, the bond is a loan.

The fundamental idea is that sometimes people will be arrested and charged with a crime but have an extended period of time before a trial can be held. Most people do not want to wait in jail for that period of time, and the legal system recognizes that it would be unfair to force someone to do so unless there is a reasonable cause to think letting them go free would be a danger to the community or that they would escape entirely. Presuming that a judge considers it reasonable to let them return to the community in the meantime there still needs to be some incentive for them to return for trial.

That is what "bail" is, an amount of money handed over to the court which will be returned in full if the accused shows up for trial at the appointed time. It is supposed to be significant enough that the accused will be reluctant to just leave it behind and avoid the trial completely. This can be in the form of cash or potentially other assets can be pledged such as one's house.

It is possible that this significant sum of money is not something the accused has conveniently on hand. They could instead borrow money in order to pay their bail, and a provider of such a specific kind of loan is known as a "bail bondsman". What they offer is to pay the accused's bail themselves for a set fee, typically 10% of the total bail. When/if the accused shows up to their trial the bondsman gets their money back in full and keeps the 10% fee from the accused.

If the accused doesn't show up for their trial then the bondsman doesn't get their money back. This is a significant risk but there is one way they can mitigate their losses. If the accused is caught and turned over to the courts then they will return the bondsman's money, and in order to make this happen they will offer a "bounty", a reward of money for the capture and return of the accused to the court. The bondsman will need to pay off the bounty but they will get their money back from the court so overall they will lose less money (assuming the bounty is less than the bail + 10%). Those who seek to fulfill the bounty are known as "bounty hunters" and due to the unique legal challenges of a private citizen who's trade is tracking down other people and capturing them against their will, such a trade tends to be strictly licensed so such people are qualified professionals.

Bail is what you pay the court. It is collateral against you turning back up when it's time for trial. The court holds the money and gives it back to you when you show up. If you don't show up, they keep the money, in addition to whatever further legal problems you have for skipping a court date.

If you do not have enough to pay bail, there are private bail bondsman companies. You pay them 10% of the bail amount, and they pay the bail money to the court. When you show up, the company gets their bail money back, and they keep the 10% you paid because that's how they make their money.

In simple terms:

Bail is an amount of money that you can pay in order to be released from jail while you wait for your case to be handled by the court. Say your bail is set at $1,000. You can pay $1,000 and get out of jail. Assuming you make all required court appearances, you get that money back once your case has been dealt with. If you take off and don’t go to court, you lose the money.

Courts want to set bail high enough to guarantee that you’ll actually show up to court when required. If bail was only $10, someone might pay it and disappear. So they set it higher.

The court might set it so high that you can’t actually pay the full amount. Even though you’d get the money back eventually, you still can’t scrape it together up front. In that case, you can get a bail bond.

The bond is an agreement by a third party — a bondsman — to pay the required bail on your behalf. The court accepts this agreement and lets you out. To get the bond, you have to pay a percentage of the bail amount, like 10% to 15%. Unlike with bail itself, you don’t get all this money back. It’s the price of the bond.

The bond guarantees to the court that you will show up when required. If you don’t show up, then the bondsman has to forfeit the full bail amount to the court, and the court will keep it. The bondsman doesn’t want to lose the full bail amount, of course, so they send a bounty hunter after you to drag you back for your court date.

So: The point of bail is to ensure that you come back to court, either on your own or dragged back in handcuffs by a bounty hunter.

All that said, there are plenty of times when they let someone out with no bail at all because they don’t have any reason to believe they won’t come back to court.

Please read this entire message

Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):

Information about a specific or narrow issue (personal problems, private experiences, legal questions, medical inquiries, how-to, relationship advice, etc.) are not allowed on ELI5.

If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the detailed rules first. If you believe this submission was removed erroneously, please use this form and we will review your submission.