Every state requires that they be licensed and regulated. In a majority of cases, bounty hunters directly apprehend the fugitives. In the remaining cases, they locate and identify the fugitive and let the police make the arrest. Once a defendant skips, the bondsman authorizes the hunt by sending out notices to relevant bondsmen and bounty hunters in their national network. The program bears a resemblance to Crime Stoppers.
Any person can engage in the search, but most of the time professionals make the recovery.
The national network of agents provides great flexibility and is less hindered by restrictions and local jealousies than are police. On the whole, the private bail bonding system seems to work well. An Alexander Grant study claims that private bail agents have a 0.8 percent fugitive rate versus 8.0 percent for public bail . A U.S. Department of Justice study of the 75 largest counties in 1990 found that only 14 percent of felony defendants released on surety bonds initially failed to appear in court versus 27 percent of those released through other methods . And at the end of one year the fugitive rates were 3 percent and 9.5 percent respectively.