How often would a bounty hunter get paid?

No not Boba Fett mercenary types.

I'm talking about someone would tracks down bailjumpers and attempt to bring them to court.

Accord to The Other Wiki, a bounty hunter gets a cut of the bail used to free the suspect from police custody.

Of course, from the way I read it they only get a check if the suspect fails to show up to court. If the suspect shows up on time, the bounty hunter doesn't receive any payment.

edited 30th Jul '13 7:05:14 PM by Worlder

Not quite.

A bounty hunter only gets hired if the person who was out on bail has already failed to appear. That's what makes them a "bail-jumper". The bounty hunter would get paid after the bail-jumper has been caught and returned to custody (someone who jumps bail once almost certainly won't be released on bail a second time — they'll wait in jail for their next court appearance.) The bounty hunter is paid by the company or person who hired them, which will usually be a bail-bond company which fronted the money to the accused person.

So the progression is this:

1. Al is arrested for something and is allowed to go "free on bond". This means that he puts up an amount of money set by the court (Could be a couple hundred dollars, could be multiple thousands, could be up around a million) as a pledge ("bond") that he will appear in court as scheduled. "Bail" is another, more casual term for "bond".
2. If he (or a family member or friend) has the money, he (or they) can pay it themselves. If he doesn't, he would get it from a bail bond company.
3. If he shows up on his court date, the bond money is returned to whoever put it up, and everything is dandy.
4. If he doesn't show up for his court date, he's "jumped bail", and the bail bond company won't get their money back unless they can produce him within a certain time frame. (By putting up the money, they pledged that he would appear.)
5. The bail bond company will, at this point, most likely hire a bounty hunter, although the really big ones may have permanent staff to do this job. The bounty hunter's job is to find Al, and get him back into police custody.
6. If the bounty hunter finds Al before the deadline, and gets him back into custody, and Al appears at the next court date, the bond company gets some or all of the money they put up back from the court. The bond company then pays the bounty hunter an agreed-on percentage of the amount of the bond — they'd rather spend some of it to get Al back into custody than lose all of it because he never showed up.

edited 30th Jul '13 7:34:49 PM by Madrugada

So does that mean my character should consider being a bounty hunter to be a part time job?

It doesn't seem like payment is going to be on a regular basis or in consistent amounts.

No, it would be even harder as a part-time job. It's time-intensive, and the bounty hunter needs to be where the bail jumper is likely to be when he's likely to be there, not when it's convenient for the bounty hunter.

Lots of bail-jumpers are fairly easy to find — they simply didn't show up at court, but they don't make any concerted effort to disappear and they aren't going to fight very hard once they're found. A bounty hunter could make a steady income going after that type.

The ones that are going to take a lot of time and effort are going to be the ones who do actively try to disappear — and they're likely to have the high bails as well. It may take a good bit of time and work to find them and bring them back, but the slice of the bail that the bounty hunter would get would also be substantial. So if he puts in 250 hours of work to find him, but he'll get (say) 10% of a quarter of a million dollars — that's $25,000, or $100 an hour.

Hmm very well then.

edited 30th Jul '13 8:31:20 PM by Worlder

I read an article about "Bail Enforcement Agents". The ones who make a living at it go up and down their state or as Mags put it, are on staff of a bailbonds agency.

Many states restrict the practice or have banned it and bail bonds altogether.

The Other Wiki has an article here.

edited 30th Jul '13 8:32:07 PM by TairaMai

To get an idea of it - and have a few great laughs in the process - read Janet Evanovich's "Stephanie Plum" series, starting at "One For The Money".

Stephanie Plum is a Bail Bond Enforcer or Bounty Hunter.

The books revolve around her more troublesome cases (and her dysfunctional sex life) but it's frequently mentioned she has to take on a easy "skips" or FT As to keep the bills paid - the guys that were just too fucking drunk to turn up for their court date and can just be shuffled downtown for a quick Body Receipt and a reschedule and don't involve days/weeks of running around to find.