NCJ Number
74940
Journal
Law and Society Review Volume: 14 Issue: 4 Dated: (Summer 1980) Pages: 947-976
Date Published
1980
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This study of bail reform in a large urban court employs an interrupted time-series research design spanning a 6-year period.
Abstract
The bail reforms were evaluated using data drawn from the trial court's computerized case histories of the entire felon population. The final data set included 38,158 defendants whose cases were disposed of in the trial courts. The basic research approach adopted was the single group-multiple intervention design. The two reform measures evaluated were creation of a pretrial release agency and adoption of deposit bail. They were examined to determine whether they had statistically significant impacts on the likelihood of pretrial release, the probability of financial losses for defendants, and the avoidance of bondsmen in the pretrial process. Weighted regression analysis was used to compensate for the possibility of autocorrelation in the time-series data. The reforms proved a mixed success. Deposit bail reform was a success making pretrial release less corruptible and less costly for felony defendants. However, no sizable increases in recognizance release followed the advent of pretrial release reform. Nor did deposit bail produce much improvement in the release of defendants with financial bails. Reform benefits in terms of release rates were distributed unevenly across crime categories, and for certain crime categories the first reform interacted with the second to produce declines in financial release rates. The findings emphasize the role of previous policy patterns and procedural rules in restraining the scope of bail reform and the political forces encouraging the use of bail for preventive detention. Tabular data and 18 references are included in the study. (Author abstract modified)