Bounty Hunters.
Once the defendant hires a bail bond agency to bail them out, it becomes the bail bond agency’s responsibility to make sure that the defendant shows up to their trial. If the defendant decides to skip bail and try to evade police and the trial, then the bail bond agency will have to find the fugitive and turn him or her in to the police in order to get their bond exonerated and receive their money back. When the defendant skips bail, the bail bond agency must figure out how they are going to find the fugitive and bring him or her back to authorities. The most common option is for the agency to hire a bounty hunter to find and capture the fugitive. When the bail bond agency hires the bounty hunter, they will set up a contract where they decide on the details on the bounty. The bounty is the amount of money that the bounty hunter will receive after capturing the fugitive, which is also known as a monetary award. The bounty is usually 10% of the initial bail amount, but the bounty hunter may charge more depending on how difficult it was to find the fugitive. Bounty hunters are also known as bail enforcement agents and fugitive recovery agents and their main and only purpose is to locate, capture, and return a fugitive that has skipped bail. Sometime, bounty hunters are also referred to as skiptracers, which is true because they do use electronic devices to locate people, but they are more directly involved in the search than an actual skiptracer. Bounty hunters in the United States are responsible for catching about 90% of all bail jumpers which shows that bounty hunters help ensure that everyone who decides to run away from the law are brought to justice. The laws regarding bounty hunting is similar throughout the United States, but some states have special restrictions and guidelines that all bounty hunters have to follow. Bounty hunters do not usually need any special training or license to operate in a certain state; they would just have to be hired by a bail bond agency to pursue a fugitive who has skipped bail. However, in some states, they require bounty hunters to receive special training in order to be able to pursue any fugitive within their borders. Bounty hunters are allowed to use any force necessary to capture the fugitive and in some cases they may be forced to use deadly force depending on the terms of the bounty that is done by the bail bond agency. Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Wisconsin have heavily restricted bounty hunting or have banned bounty hunting altogether. This means that if a fugitive were to run away from their court date, it would be illegal for any bail bond agency to pursue a fugitive within those borders. Bounty hunters are not police and do not have the right to pursue any person they feel fit, they must be hired by a bail bond agency to pursue one suspect.