The Bail Bond: Defining Surety-Accused Relationship Adaptations Post Bail Release

• In Event: Poster Session 2

Abstract

Surety releases involve friends and family of accused individuals taking on the crime control functions traditionally carried out by penal agents. With the penal state continuing to operate “in nuanced ways and through intermediary sites,” like the family, “to control criminalized people in a host of overt and obscured ways,” (Kaufman et al. 2018), it becomes increasingly important to understand how this shift in responsibility affects the surety-accused relationship. This study asks: 1) How and why do friends’ and family members’ relationship with the accused change as a result of being surety? and 2) To what extent do these adaptations influence friends’ and families’ willingness and capacity to continue their support of the accused in the future? Using interview data from 36 sureties in Ontario, Canada, we find that being a surety had three primary effects on relationships - volatile, damaging, and constructive – characterized by the strength and quality of the relationship prior to release, divergent role expectations post-release, and the weight friends and families felt shouldering the responsibilities of being surety. The results underscore how shifts in the way we control and punish subsequently impact personal relationships in ways that both minimize and exacerbate the revolving door of justice.

Authors

• Rachel Schumann, University of Toronto

• Carolyn Yule, University of Guelph