The Bail Book: A Comprehensive Look at Bail in America's Criminal Justice System - Introduction

Baughman, Shima Baradaran

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3200533

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 0 publications

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“…These null effects may reflect the current practices of the for-profit bail industry. The fee paid by a person to retain the services of a bond agent is not returned to them even if they appear for all scheduled court dates and are not rearrested (Baughman, 2017). A person may have greater incentives to return to court if the money they paid were to be returned to them in full.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This act allowed federal judges to attempt to use bail to ensure that a person was not a threat to public safety (i.e., that they would not be arrested for another crime while on pretrial release) in addition to ensuring their return to court (Bail Reform Act of 1984, 1984Carlucci, 2020). Though the Bail Reform Act of 1984Act of (1984 applied only to the federal court system, many states either already allowed for the consideration of public safety (Baughman, 2017) or followed suit and amended their bail statutes (Schnacke et al, 2010). Notably, bail law varies widely from state to state and between the state and federal court systems (Jones, 2013).…”

Section: Money Bailmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, if a person pays a bond agent to cover bail for them, they are incentivized by the threat of the bond agent pursuing them to return them to custody or to recoup the lost bail money (Becker, 1968; Page et al, 2019). When attempting to set a bail amount that will ensure a person appears in court and avoids rearrest, judges and magistrates are permitted to consider a range of factors including, but not limited to, the nature of the current charge, the weight of the evidence against a person, a person’s community ties, and their criminal history and personal characteristics (Bail Reform Act of 1984, 1984; Baughman, 2017; Jones, 2013; Karnow, 2008). Most jurisdictions have developed statutory laws or other policy guidelines to establish uniformity in bail setting (Gouldin, 2016; Pretrial Justice Institute, 2010).…”

Section: Money Bailmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, these guidelines do not specify how each factor should be weighted or which factors are most associated with failure to appear and which with rearrest (Stevenson & Mayson, 2017). Limited guidance combined with a vast amount of discretion has resulted in a system where virtually no one knows precisely how judges and magistrates make decisions about bail amounts (Baughman, 2017; Jones, 2013). Indeed, judicial decision makers themselves have occasionally discussed the arbitrary nature of the bail amounts they select (Oliver, 2020).…”

Section: Money Bailmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparing the relationships between money bail, pretrial risk scores, and pretrial outcomes.

Zottola¹,

Desmarais²

2022

Law and Human Behavior

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Objectives: There has been much discussion around the use of both money bail and pretrial risk assessment instruments. We examine how bail and risk scores compare in terms of their associations with failure to appear in court and rearrest during the pretrial period. Hypotheses: Our research questions included whether bail and risk scores differed between people who did and did not experience pretrial outcomes and whether pretrial scores were associated with outcomes when controlling for bail and other relevant covariates. Method: To examine these associations, we drew a sample of 492 people (33% women; 60% Black) booked into county jail in a jurisdiction not yet using a pretrial risk assessment instrument to inform release decisions. We completed the Public Safety Assessment (PSA) for this sample and collected data on failure-to-appear and rearrest incidents for 1 year following initial bookings. We examined the associations between bail amount, failure to appear, and rearrest and between PSA subscale scores, failure to appear, and rearrest. Results: Bail amount was not associated with either failure to appear or rearrest. People who failed to appear or were rearrested had higher bail amounts, on average, than people who did not. In contrast, PSA subscale scores were significantly associated with outcomes in the expected direction. Conclusions: Our findings do not support the use of money bail for ensuring that people return to court and avoid rearrest. Instead, our findings suggest that using pretrial risk assessment, instruments could result in more accurate and appropriate release decisions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Money Bailmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Money Bailmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Money Bailmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparing the relationships between money bail, pretrial risk scores, and pretrial outcomes.

Zottola¹,

Desmarais²

2022

Law and Human Behavior

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“…This is the major difference between paying bail directly to the court and using the services of a bail agent. When a person pays bail directly to the court, the payment is returned when they appear for scheduled court dates; when a person pays a bail agent, the payment is never returned, even if they appear for scheduled court dates (Baughman, 2017b). While a few states have banned commercial bail agent services (e.g., Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon, and Wisconsin), this is the most common form of paying bail in most other states ("Bail Bond Agents", 2019).…”

Section: Definitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bail Reform in the United States: The What, Why, and How of Third Wave Efforts

Zottola

Clarke

Desmarais

2021

Handbook of Issues in Criminal Justice Reform in the United States

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Bail is the practice of using money or property as an assurance that a person charged with a criminal offense will return for their scheduled court dates and not engage in criminal activity during the pretrial period. However, there is limited evidence supporting bail as an intervention in these ways, despite the steady increase in both the use and amount of bail since the late 1980s. Instead, bail is widely criticized for emphasizing resource-based decisions that have unnecessarily increased rates of pretrial detention in the United States and have contributed to cumulative and disproportionate disadvantage for people of color and low-income people involved in the American legal system. Consequently, there is widespread agreement that bail reform is needed and, yet, what this means in policy and practice is widely contested. In this chapter, we review bail decision-making practices, their impact overall and for marginalized groups, and bail reform efforts over time, including ongoing challenges or concerns.

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