In the system I work in, the vast majority of cases have what we call a $5,000/Own Recognizance bail. Means that the accused signs a form indicating that he/she will appear for all hearings, and failure to appear will result in a warrant being issued and the possibility of a fine of $5,000. It also has conditions tied to it, such as reporting to Court Services (our name for pre-trial supervision officers and probation officers), no illegal drug use, drug testing, no contact with victim, etc., all depending on the charge. In my experience, judges will look at a person's pretrial behavior in those cases as an indicator of how a person may do if placed on community control/probation.
We do not use electronic monitoring. Reason why is that in our experience, all the monitor does is tell us when a person runs, as an alert goes out when they cut the strap for the monitor. And, in general when a person cuts the strap and runs, it usually takes about half an hour before the right people get that information, so there's no chance of running out and catching the person before they run or do something stupid. One case I recall, the woman cut the device off. She wasn't planning to run, she was wanting to go see the 13 year old boy she was in love with for a hook-up. Court services found her the next morning in bed with the boy, and she was happy because she figured she'd gotten pregnant. In her thinking, pregnancy meant she couldn't be sent to prison. She was wrong.
