Out of all of the first-world countries and with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, the United States is the only one which allows the commercialization of bail bonds. The for-profit industry manages to rake in a cool 2 billion dollars in revenue a year.

Most criminal defendants don’t have the means to pay the full bail set on them and as a result must either stay in jail or pay a 10 percent fee in order to secure a bond, which they won’t see again even if found not guilty.