Me:  Hello, is this the County Jail

County Jail: Yes how can I help you?

Me: I’d like to know how to bail an inmate out

County Jail: Let me connect you to the right department….

Four wrong departments later

The Right Department?: Of course you can use a credit card

Me: How would I go about that?

County Jail: Let me connect you to the right department

ME: No! Please don’t!

The Right Department!: No, we don’t accept credit cards for bail

Me: How do you bail an inmate out?

The Right Department:  Cash, in person. Or postal money order, in person.

Me: Ok, thank you.

Me at the county jail, in person, with questions not cash

County Jail: I think you could have used a credit card over the phone to put money in their commissary and they could have used it to bail themselves out

Me: !!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think you may be right, but just in case your not….  let’s go over it again, for clarity.

I wasn’t actually trying to bail anyone out, I was trying to find out how I would if I had to. I can’t even begin to imagine how much worse it would have been if I was, if someone I cared about was locked up and I was emotionally involved.

I work for a company called R3. We offer communication, transportation, commissary and bail to our clients when and if they find themselves with legal issues. I was trying to figure out how individual jail systems operated and how their policies differed from one facility to the next. I found more differing opinions about policies than facts. However, I did get down to the bottom of it so that our clients can skip that step, they have enough on their plate as it is.