Setting bail

One measure of how seriously society views a crime is the bail set for the accused to ensure he or she will return to be tried. That’s why it was shocking last week that a Hampden man was released on a personal recognizance bail totaling $700 after he allegedly beat his wife and was in an armed standoff with police.

The personal recognizance bail means that Jeffrey Sproul was able to pay the $25 bail commissioner’s fee and walk free. If he fails to show up in court at the proper time, he will owe the $700. But the fact that he could be back on the street before police officers could finish with their paperwork on the arrest suggests that the bail system needs to be re-examined.

Sproul barricaded himself and his two young daughters inside his Hampden home last Friday after his wife went to police complaining that she had been beaten by him and showing red marks and scratches around her neck where she had been choked. When Hampden police arrived at the Sproul home shortly after midnight, Mr. Sproul threatened to kill them and, at one point, allegedly aimed a loaded compound bow at Police Chief Joe Rogers. Sproul was also armed with a shotgun.

In the middle of the night-long standoff, the four Hampden officers, nine members of the Maine State Police Tactical Team and three negotiators persuaded Sproul to release his daughters. By 5 a.m. he also came out, was taken into custody and charged with domestic assault and criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, a Class C felony. Later that morning, Sproul had paid the bail fee and was back out with the condition that he stay away from his wife and daughters.

Police, understandably, are unhappy to have risked their lives only to see a man charged with a serious crime released on $25 and a promise to show up in court next month. Bail is not supposed to serve as punishment, but Sproul had no cooling-off period and little incentive to face the possible penalties for the charges — up to five years in jail for threatening with a dangerous weapon and up to 364 days on the domestic assault.

The message the court system is sending him and others accused in similar cases is that their criminal actions are of minimal concern to the state. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women and protection from abuse orders are only occasionally effective. Police officers are placed in a life-threatening situation. Yet offenders who demonstrate that they are capable of rash, violent actions are set free, at least temporarily, with little more than a warning.

Victims of domestic abuse and the law-enforcement officers who try to help them can draw only the most frightening conclusions from these events.