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Located on the southwest corner at the intersection of Blue Earth Avenue and Downtown Plaza, Griffin Bail Bonds has been in Fairmont since January.
Local agent Jason Mau says he is excited to be in town, and happy to offer his services to the community. Mau explained not only what a bail bondsman does, but why he considers his work to be important.
"When people get put in jail and they can't afford to get out of jail, they have a choice," he said. "For example, for a third degree DWI there is a $12,000 bond. They have a choice of putting $12,000 up of their own money and getting out of jail, or they give me $1,200 and I write a bond, which is like an insurance policy, to get them out of jail and back out on the streets."
Mau says Griffin Bail Bonds has been around for 50 years, and is based in St. Paul. He covers the Fifth Judicial District with help from his stepdaughter, and notes that he did not originally seek his current job.
"I was in the insurance industry," he said. "I had taken all my insurance tests and did property and casualty insurance. But trying to build your business in that market takes years. There's people that have been working at it and while people need insurance, it's hard to get them to switch. Then somebody mentioned to me about the bail bonds business.
"I looked into it, and my insurance license allowed me to transfer over, and I started writing bonds. So I decided that even though the clientele was a little different, to build the business was easier and faster than it was in the insurance industry."
But more than just growing a business, Mau shared that he looks at his job as a way to help reach out to people.
"It's more of a mission for me," he said. "I'm a Christian, and I wanted to do something for people, and this put me in contact with people who are in a bad way, and a lot of what they're doing is because that's the way they act. Most of us don't need a bail bondsman because that's not the way we act, but 10 to 20 percent of the population don't get it.
"They don't understand that staying off of drugs and obeying the laws is something you have to work at. They keep falling into the same rut, and I wanted a way to try and help them. This is my way of helping, and I'm able to talk to people and try to explain that what they're doing is not good and the best thing to do is stay away from it.
"It's important for them to find new friends and other avenues, and I've been able to get people hooked up in churches and stuff like that."
When asked about whether he faces challenges in his line of work, Mau said the most challenging thing for him is what he describes as "shedding."
"When I deal with people, I take in a lot of garbage and I have to be able to get rid of it," he said. "I'm not a cop, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not a part of those groups. I don't want to be a part of that 20 percent, so to try to find people to talk to who understand what you're going through and stop the garbage from building up is difficult.
"I have to bail out people who are into prostitution and into child pornography and stuff like that, that's what I do. But as I read the police reports and go to court, I want to cry over some of the things these people have done, but that's my job. So once it's in there you have to be able to get rid of it, and that's the toughest part about my job, because it gets to you."
Mau also notes that he wants to be accessible to people and remind them that they do have rights, even if they're in jail.
"I'm here for everybody," he said. "I develop a relationship with the jailers and the cops and everything like that, but having a bail is a right and I'm a firm believer in our constitutional rights. I want everybody treated fairly.
"Everybody is innocent until proven guilty and as many bad situations where I know people are guilty, there are situations where people aren't guilty or at least not guilty to the extent that they're being charged. So I try to be that buffer there to tell people that they do have constitutional rights. It is a mission, this is how I reach people, and this is where the Lord has put me."