Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act of 2025
Key claim: The bill broadens the federal definition of the business of insurance to include posting of monetary bail, criminal bail bonds, and federal immigration bail bonds, thereby subjecting charitable bail funds and similar entities to federal insurance-fraud criminal provisions and state insurance licensing and regulation.
Abstract
(HR6260 · 119th Congress) Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act of 2025 This bill broadens the definition of the term business of insurance , for the purposes of federal crimes related to insurance fraud, to include the posting of monetary bail, criminal bail bonds, and federal immigration bail bonds. Under the bill, entities and organizations that pay cash bond or bail for defendants (e.g., charitable bail funds) are engaged in the business of insurance under federal law and subject to federal criminal provisions related to insurance fraud, as well as state licensing requirements and regulation by state insurance commissions. Latest action (2026-05-18): Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Why this matters
By reclassifying the posting of monetary bail as the ‘business of insurance,’ the bill would functionally require charitable bail funds—organizations that pay bail for indigent defendants and immigration detainees—to obtain state insurance licenses and comply with insurance-fraud statutes. Practically, this could shutter or sharply curtail bail funds that lack the capital, licensure, or regulatory infrastructure of commercial bail bond insurers, affecting pretrial release access for low-income defendants and immigrant detainees. The proposal is contested: proponents frame it as closing a regulatory gap around unlicensed bail activity, while opponents view it as a targeted mechanism to disable charitable pretrial release.