No Money Bail, No Problems? Trade-offs in a Pretrial Automatic Release Program

Abstract

Many jurisdictions across the United States are implementing bail reform programs to reduce the use of money bail. Bail reform opponents argue that money bail is critical for averting pretrial misconduct, while proponents counter that the effects are small and not worth the consequent costs of pretrial detention. I examine this detention-misconduct trade-off using a program in Kentucky that automatically released people arrested for low-level offenses – people who usually would have had financial conditions for release from jail. I find that the program reduced total annual time in pretrial detention by over 25 person-years with no detectable effect on pretrial rearrest. Meanwhile, the program increased the number of annual court non-appearances by about 364. This trade-off is desirable if 1 court non-appearance is less costly than 26 days in detention.