Tagged: pretrial release

New York’s bail reform law and recidivism

by · Mar 29, 2023 2:31 pm

In recent years, many states throughout the nation have taken steps to reduce or eliminate the use of monetary bail. According to proponents, the purpose of bail “reform” is to reduce jail populations and decrease income disparities regarding how bail is applied. However, critics believe that such laws would negatively impact public safety due to more defendants committing crimes while on pretrial release. Further, there also concerns that reforms could increase failure-to-appear rates.

One state where bail reform has received considerable attention is New York. Statewide reforms first took effect on January 1, 2020, though it was later amended in April 2020 and May 2022. Currently, there isn’t a ton of research examining whether bail reform contributed to crime, but more research is starting to trickle out on this topic. There seems to be a lot of variaiton regarding the findings though. One of the more recent reports on this topic was published earlier this month by the Data Collaborative for Justice (DCJ), which claimed that bail reform decreased recidivism among pretrial releases in New York City. However, this is inconsistent with a previous study from last year, also conducted in New York City, which found the opposite: bail reform efforts significantly increased recidivism. Thus, it’s important to read these studies very carefully to determine which ones are the most relevant and helpful. In this post, I will review the latest report released by the DCJ and provide my thoughts regarding its validity.

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New York’s bail “reform” and the negative impacts on public safety: Study

by · Aug 9, 2022 3:48 pm

In recent years, many jurisdictions in the U.S. have taken steps to reform their cash bail systems due to concerns about fair treatment of defendants and potential disparities in release decisions. Though, there is no consensus about what should replace cash bail, and there are numerous concerns about the potential public safety risks associated with bail reform. Proponents of bail reform advocate for reducing or eliminating the use of monetary bail to reduce jail populations and reduce income disparities. However, opponents of bail reform argue that reforms have resulted in more defendants committing crimes while on pretrial release. To date, the research has been mixed regarding the impacts of different bail reform efforts, but newer research seems to be suggesting the obvious — that bail “reforms” are linked to increases in crime.

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The impact of bail reform in the United States

by · Dec 14, 2021 12:37 pm

In recent years, many jurisdictions throughout the United States have taken steps to reform their cash bail systems.  Proponents of bail reform advocate for reducing or eliminating the use of monetary bail to reduce jail populations and reduce income disparities regarding how bail is applied. However, opponents of bail reform argue that reforms have been extreme, countering that they could result in more defendants failing to appear for court hearings and more defendants committing crimes while on pretrial release.

Among the many states implementing bail reform include California, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Illinois, and Alaska. In addition, many individual jurisdictions have implemented their own bail reform policies, such as Atlanta, Philadelphia, Houston, and Chicago, among others. There is no consensus about what should replace cash bail, though some options include implementing strategies to expand pretrial supervision and services, and requiring pretrial risk assessment instruments to inform pretrial release decisions. However, most research has not found decreases in the rates of missed court dates or rearrests associated with either strategy.

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San Francisco risk assessment tool: Efficacy in predicting public safety risk for pretrial release decisions

by · Jul 15, 2021 3:36 pm

A recently published San Francisco-based study conducted by the California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley/Los Angeles has shed some insight on the accuracy of the city’s Public Safety Assessment (PSA), an algorithmic tool that is used to inform pretrial release decisions for adult offenders. The tool scores defendants on how likely they are to show up for future court dates, their probability of committing a crime during the pretrial phase, and whether that crime might be violent. Overall, the researchers concluded that the tool met the threshold required for it to be considered “sufficiently predictive” (p. 27) of risk. The study examined 9,800 individuals released pending trial between May 2016 (when the tool was adopted) and December 2019. Of those people released, 51% failed to appear in court and 55% were arrested for new crimes during the pretrial release period (18% of which were for violent offenses).

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