Indiana Senate approves limits for nonprofits that provide jail bail

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — State senators on Thursday afternoon clashed over whether bail restrictions should be extended to for-profit entities.

The argument came as the Senate approved a House-backed measure to limit the operations of nonprofit bail organizations in Indiana. The Senate approved its own version in January, but lawmakers put that bill on the back burner in favor of the House version.

Nonprofit bail organizations would have to register with the state insurance commissioner, as for-profit bail entities already must do, and could only get involved in cases where someone is accused of a nonviolent crime, lacks a violent criminal history, and faces a bail amount of $2,000 or less.

Republican lawmakers filed the bill after a pair of murders in 2021 in which the suspects had been bailed out by the national nonprofit, The Bail Project.

Senate Minority Leader Greg Taylor, an Indianapolis Democrat, pressed the Republican bill sponsor, Sen. Aaron Freeman of Indianapolis, on the issue of for-profit bail. Taylor brought up Travis Lang, the man suspected of murdering Dylan McGinnis on Oct. 1 after The Bail Project covered his bail for a previous charge. Taylor said Lang had already been bailed out by for-profit bail entities on at least two or three occasions before that.

“If you are concerned about people like Travis Lang and the fact that they’re getting bailed out over and over and over again, why aren’t you talking about the surety companies that bailed him out?” Taylor asked.

Freeman responded that a better question would be to ask about low bail amounts being set by judges.

“Will this bill fix it? No. I’m not telling you it will,” Freeman said. “But, it will help. It will absolutely help.”

The bill has to go back to the House due to changes made in a Senate committee.