How do you recommend a person repay the debt then? By unbreaking the window? By unmugging the victim? All justice is, by definition, retributive. If there’s no restorative or rehabilitative value in the punishment, why administer it? Sadism? Vengeance?
The idea of a bond isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s impractical. How is a con supposed to come up with the money for a bond when he just got out of prison and can’t get a job?
Not our problem. The convict’s problem. He should have thought of that before committing the offense.
I might be willing to accept bonding as as part of the prison system. Maybe it could be part of a work-release system? The business case could be pitting the cost of funding a bonding system against the cost of welfare and recidivism.
But, after demonstrating poor decision making, and enjoying years in ‘Crime U,’ trust is something the convict will have to earn. He does not get it automatically.