Bounty hunters in New Orleans are complaining about the fact that the city does not have a well-maintained, up to date, database of wanted criminals. This lack of information has resulted in bounty hunters having to house fugitives after catching them while they work with the various city bureaucracies to help identify suspects.
In fact, due to complications in the way that the city classifies different kinds of fugitives, bounty hunters claim that potentially dozens of suspects live freely in the city, unafraid of being caught because the city’s regulations and procedures make processing them too difficult and complicated.
Bail bondsmen in New Orleans have 180 days to find fugitives from justice or they must pay the entire bill bond to the court. In order to avoid such a massive loss, the bail bondsmen turn to bounty hunters, hoping that they will be able to bring the fugitives back to justice within allotted time.
Bounty hunters in the city are increasingly relying on technology to catch those who are running from the law, and relying less on popularized strong-arm tactics shown on TV. But the city’s bounty hunters say that New Orleans must update its criminal tracking systems if it is to ensure the maximum rate of fugitive recovery and return.
Despite the technological aspects of the profession, New Orleans bounty hunters claim that the city does not routinely update its criminal justice databases to indicate when a criminal has fled the criminal justice system. They complain that both the local New Orleans databases and New Orleans related data on the national criminal justice database have the same issue.
The problem causes serious conflicts because when a fugitive has not been added to the system, local jails may refuse to accept them, costing the bounty hunters time, energy, and money. Ultimately, the bounty hunters say that the current set up is more beneficial for the fugitive than those looking to help the criminal justice system function.