Kathy Erken Bail Bonds

Main Office:  650-366-6500

234 Marshall Street, Upstairs X, Redwood City, CA 94063
(behind the San Mateo County Jail at Warren & Marshall Streets.)

Email

katherken@yahoo.com

Links

California Bail
Agents Association

PBUS

Redwood City Almanac | The Inspector 1999 | The Inspector 1997

Redwood City Almanac • Redwood City's Hometown Newspaper	August 25, 1999
Top row, left to right: Jan Silva (Esther Green Bail Bonds). Larry Shanahan (Peninsula Bail Bonds), Sheriff Don Horsley (San Mateo County Sheriff), Fred Sanderson (Sanderson Bail Bonds), Terry Finn (Madonna's Bail Bonds). Bottom row, left to right: Bonnie Shanahan (Bonnie's Bail Bonds), Kathy Erken (Kathy Erken Bail Bonds), Geri Campana (Al Graf Bail Bonds), Alan Davidson (Bail Bonds Unlimited).

Bail Agents Association helps sheriff's office

By Steve Penna, Managing Editor

San Mateo County detectives soon will have a better way to determine whether criminal suspects are lying, thanks to a new computer polygraph system the Sheriff's office is purchasing with help from the San Mateo Bail Agents Association.

San Mateo County decided to purchase the new $10,000 system after the county's Bail Bonds Association donated $5,000 towards the purchase of the system last week. The county will use narcotic seizure funds to pay the balance. The system will be available to all San Mateo County police and fire agencies. About 175 people take the examination each year in San Mateo County.

The new system comes with a laptop computer and a blood-pressure cuff that records a subject's pulse rate. Polygraph examinees are hooked up to pneumotubes, devices that measure the rate of chest and stomach respiration. Two electrodes are attached to the fingertips to measure an individual's nerve response.

During the examination, a computer program charts and scores an individual's response to selected questions. Afterward, examiners can compare their results, truthful, deceptive, and inconclusive, to the computers.

The sheriff's office has provided polygraph services to all law enforcement agencies within the county since 1985, and although it is working well, there have been some tremendous improvements in the field of polygraph technology. The new computerized polygraph system is now used as standard equipment for training new examiners for the Department of Defense, FBI and other federal private polygraph schools.

The San Mateo Bail Agents Association is governed by President Terry Finn of Madonna's Bail Bonds, Vice President Fred Sanderson of Sanderson Bail Bonds, Secretary Kathy Erken of Kathy Erken Bail Bonds and Treasurer Bonnie Shanahan of Bonnie's Bail Bonds.

This is the first time that a Bail Bonds Association has made such a donation in California. The donation, in part, was made to promote good will among members of the association and the law enforcement community.