Week 0: Gig reading: Bounty Hunter (p539)

This entry is about a bounty hunter, Charles Robinson, talking about his job.

The first time i looked at the title "Bounty hunter" I immediately recalled watching Star Wars. Boba Fett and Jango Fett, they were Mandalorian bounty hunters, and they were bad guys who ended up killed. And recently I've watched "Bounty Hunter" starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. They are the first things that come to mind, and they are the reasons why i choose this entry. 

Before reading the entry, I thought of bounty hunters as big intimidating, daring and well-equipped guys who had less power than police but enough to hurt a fugitive and put him into jail. And money-craving. Yeah there are millions of jobs out there and if you are not big and strong and in need of money badly, you can't do it. That's what i thought.

Robinson, now a full-time bounty hunter, works for about 8 different bail bondsmen, under the law of Taintor v. Taylor. In short, his job is about hunting down people who skip their bails, that is, failing to show up at the court for some reason. He can carry weapons, cross state lines, ignore local laws, do whatever it takes to get the fugitives. In a cheap way because I think what motivates a bounty hunter is the bounty. It is funny to think that he is a law enforcer who cares for money more than public security.

To get the job done, Robinson needs some people acting as some kind of "living database and tracking machine", with commission fees, say "thirty bucks a whack". He's lucky to have cousins and uncles in two federal agencies.

I guess the interviewer wanted him to depict his story in a certain way so that it looks like Robinson's solving a riddle. More like a treasure hunt because it can bring money. It sounded so easy to him, just like a case study in the textbook to the old professor. There are some steps to the case:

First step, we have the situation, someone's missing at the wrong time and someone else wanted him back. So Robinson just took any chance to find the clues from his boss, dad and mom. 

Second step, the target must be residing at someone's place. Girlfriend, close friend, siblings, cousins. By utilizing his "living database and tracking system", Robinson could find a target's whereabouts from a very small clue and he's proud of that. He called that "creative manhunting" and "creative investigating".

Third step, catching the target mostly by INTIMIDATING him. The target belongs to several kinds of bail-skippers, from misdemeanors to petty criminal and violent crimes. The most important thing is to make use of "manipulation, diplomacy and confident bullshitting". It's time to look intimidating and sound intimidating. But it's kind of different depending on the target, whether he chooses to give in or to run or to fight back. 

So, Robinson's not so different from what I thought, daring, intimidating, he's got a gun and he likes money. Personally I think they're a little bit violent. But somehow they're doing good deeds.