Montana jail to accept credit cards for bail

MISSOULA – Hauled to the pokey here and need to post bail? Put it on plastic.

The Missoula County Detention Center intends to accept credit-card payments for bail, as part of an effort to get people out of the building sooner and control jail crowding. For that reason, officials also want to expand telephone service for bail seekers, making it easier to call for help.

Acceptance of credit cards is set to begin today.

“The credit card machine is now installed at the jail, so if you get arrested and want to bail yourself out, you can put it on your credit card,” said Margaret Borg, a former chief public defender here. County officials asked Borg to examine solutions to the crowding.

The Missoula County Sheriff’s Department says that before long, people in custody likely will have the option of calling cell-phone numbers. The jail telephone system now available to them allows only collect calls. Consequently, only calls to conventional phones may be placed.

Curt Hopfinger of Securus Technologies, which provides Missoula County’s inmate phone system, said a growing number of jails are establishing systems that let inmates call cell phones. Hopfinger said that “if the facility will allow it, we have a program that can set it up.”

The system sends an automated message to the receiving party’s cell phone, instructing that person to establish an account with Securus.

“So with that, the party being called is the one that pays the charges of the call,” Hopfinger said.

Capt. Susan Hintz of the sheriff’s department said it is “trying to help new prisoners get bonded out more quickly, before going to a holding cell. That’s the preferred way because then we don’t have to put them in the pretty orange clothing, we don’t have to do inventory on their personal effects. If they can call somebody to bond them out, we’re happy to let them go, space being an issue.”

Officials also have raised the amount for which inmates can write checks to cover bail. Checks for defendants in city court will be accepted in sums up to $250. In Justice Court cases, the new limit is $2,000.