NPR ran an important three part story last week on the half-million people sitting in jail — petty, nonviolent offenders who are there for only one reason — because they can’t make bail. It’s an expensive proposition; in Broward County, FL, for example, jail costs $115 a day per inmate.

A far cheaper alternative, a pretrial program in Broward costs about $7 a day. That program saved county taxpayers $20 million a year. And NPR found court records documenting that the defendants still showed up for their court dates.

But that, it turns out, was seen as a threat to the bail bondsmen. And they, it turns out, are a powerful special interest group. Bondsmen want to keep such programs as small and unproductive as possible. They hired a lobbyist. The lobbyist went to work. In short order the program was gutted.

With that Broward has become a model for bail bondsmen across the country. NPR found jails stuffed with inmates in Lubbock, TX:

“We take care of the ones who take care of us,” [Bondsman Ken] Herzog says. “We don’t want to pay anybody off, per se. We just want to support the people who are trying to help our business.”

According to Lubbock campaign records, bondsmen make frequent donations to elected officials. Indigent jail inmates do not.

It gets worse. Judges inflate bail, basing it on the amount the defendant pays to the bondsman; bondsmen don’t pay full bail for defendants who fail to appear. Oh, and that image of the bond agent out tracking down the no-shows? Not happening. It’s sheriffs and the police who bring in the vast majority of those who skip bail.

It’s impressive journalism. Check out all three parts.