There are several areas in Los Angeles county that get a lot of bail bond activity. The city of Los Angeles is really a vast county with many different cities all grouped together. From Long Beach to the south all the way up to Topanga Canyon and the Hollywood Hills to the north and from Venice and Santa Monica Beach to the West to East Los Angeles to the (duh) east, the bail bond industry is in full swing day in and day out. Night time is the busiest time for bail bondsman throughout the county and many of them travel many miles to do their business.
One of the busiest bail bond stores in all of Los Angeles County is Andys Bail Bonds in Long Beach. Located just across the street from the large and stately court house, Andys (now Aladdin) Bail Bonds is a fixture in the community and one of the busiest bail shops anywhere in the U.S. At any time of night or day you will see several families in there signing papers and bringing in cash to have the bondsman post the bond for their loved one or family member. Since Long Beach is the notorious long time home of some of the worst criminals in the U.S. it also has one of the highest crime rates and also one of the highest arrest rates in all of the U.S. or anywhere in the world for that matter.
Gangs make up a large part of the Los Angeles criminal activity and these violent thugs rule the hard streets from Compton, South Central, East Los Angeles, Long Beach, Watts, all the way to even more affluent neighborhoods like Torrance and Hawthorne. There are some extremely tough places in Los Angeles where you just dont want to make a wrong turn into late at night, or even during the day. Watts, for example, is one of those hard neighborhoods with extreme poverty levels and hundreds if not thousands of gang members lurking everywhere. Los Angeles bail bonds are needed to help those that have been incarcerated but can not pay the amount of the bail themselves.
When the suspect or his family do not have the money to get them out, they need to go to one of several Los Angeles bail bonds providers and pay a small percentage in order to secure the bond. The bail bondsman will take some money from the family, usually around 10 percent of the bond amount. For example, if the bond has been placed at $25,000 by the judge, then the bail bondsman will take a fee of $2500 from the family as payment for posting the bond.
The bail bondsman has all of the risk and if the criminal does not show up for his arraignment or any of his court dates, the bondsman could forfeit the bond. If that does happen, the bondsman will usually hire a Bounty Hunter or what is referred to in the business as a Skip Tracer. These are hard men, usually former law enforcement types, who will hunt down fugitive suspects and bring them back in to face trial.