This isn't just about a person who misses a court date because they're lazy; it's also about people who may flee to a different country, or start working under an assumed name, or anything of the sort.
If they've already paid, they have some incentive to come back and be able to reclaim their bail money.
If they do skip town, sending cops after them to track them down and arrest them again is expensive. That's where the bounty hunter part comes in; if they skip their court date, their own bail money is used as incentive to encourage police officers, sheriffs, or private investigators to capture them.
In many cases, this isn't the romantic image of a western cowboy hunting down dangerous criminals in caves, but just the equivalent of a debt-collection agency, that calls them, mails them, files information with credit agencies preventing them from receiving credit, and so on.
Fair enough about tracking down people who flee. Wouldn't that be some evidence towards a conviction though?
There's one thought that applies to smaller population. If someone disappears you can just stop worrying about them? Hiding from public and going to jail has close to the same net benefit for society. Just thinking.
You get it back if you make all of your court appearances. it's way to help ensure that people charged wth a crime don't flee.
"Money walks all over morals."
How so?
Would it be better to keep people in jail simply because they've been accused of a crime?
If everyone was trusted to show up for court after being charged I think we'd have a whole other set of issues.