A peace bond is a court-required surety bond or conditional fine, criminal or quasi-criminal in nature, that an individual must pay to guarantee that he or she will not commit a breach of the peace, be it through threats, public disturbance, disorderly conduct, or similar behavior beyond annoyance or insult towards another. A peace bond carries out justice as it requires an individual to assure the public that he or she will refrain from engaging in the form of non-peaceable conduct that they would otherwise be expected to commit, deterring future harmful behavior. When a movant can show than an individual poses a well-founded threat to a potential victim, a court may impose such conduct limitations and require a peace bond that is subject to forfeiture to the adversely affected parties if the individual breaches those limitations.
[Last updated in July of 2020 by the Wex Definitions Team]