Giving Compass' Take:

· This report by Megan T. Stevenson and Aurelie Ouss analyzes the effects of reductions in the use of monetary bail in Pennsylvania's criminal justice system. The data shows that these reductions can be made without any significant increase in failure-to-appear in court rates. 

· If implemented nationwide, how would this change affect the costs of the US criminal justice system?

· Read about New Jersey's bail reform. 

Recent criminal justice reform efforts have focused on electing progressive prosecutors to implement change, such as the reduction of cash bail as a requirement for pretrial release. However, critics worry that removing cash bail will decrease account- ability and increase failure-to-appear in court. We test this by looking at the effects of the No-Cash-Bail reform policy initiated by Philadelphia’s recently elected District Attorney, Larry Krasner. Under this policy, the DA’s office stopped requesting cash bail for defendants charged with a large variety of different offenses, both misdemeanor and felony. This policy led to an immediate 23% increase (12 percentage points) in the fraction of eligible defendants released with no monetary or other conditions (ROR), and a 22% (5 percentage points) decrease in the fraction of defendants who spent at least one night in jail, but no detectable difference for longer jail stays. The main effect of this policy was therefore to reduce the use of collateral to incentivize court appearance. In spite of this large decrease in the fraction of defendants having monetary incentives to show up to court, we detect no change in failure-to-appear in court or in recidivism, suggesting that reductions in the use of monetary bail can be made without significant adverse consequences. These results also demonstrate the role of prosecutors in determining outcomes over which they have no direct authority, such as setting bail.

Read the full article about cash bail reform by Megan T. Stevenson and Aurelie Ouss at SSRN.