Recidivism went down long-term after New York state’s initial bail reform laws in the suburban and upstate areas, but saw short-term increases among a minority of individuals deemed “high-risk” for reoffending, researchers from the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College have found.
“It’s looking at areas outside of New York City, where prior to the reform going into effect, bail was much more common,” said report co-author Stephen Koppel. “Outside of the city, it was about 41% of cases were either bailed or remanded compared to New York City, where it was down to about 21%.
“The marginal effect of going from a system where you could consider all the factors possible to a system where you could only consider the [current] charge, the effect is going to be bigger outside of New York City. It allows you to answer the question: What was the impact in a context where bail or remand were fairly common?”
While bail reform remains a hot-button issue in the Big Apple, the law ostensibly soft-launched in New York City decades before enactment in 2020 — the courts were already releasing people on otherwise bail-eligible offenses previously. Koppel also pointed to the study focusing exclusively on a period before amendments to bail reform that allowed judges to apply some discretion in setting bails and remands.
The laws eliminated the option to set bail or remands for most misdemeanor and non-violent charges, ostensibly saving many New Yorkers from pre-trial detention. The first iteration of the law went into effect at the start of 2020, but was amended around half a year later.
The report found that during the pretrial period, bail reform did not have a broad impact on recidivism and only saw increases among a “high-risk” subgroup. The findings pointed to a 6.6% uptick in general re-arrests and a 5% jump in felony re-arrest likelihood among those individuals after the state eliminated bail. Among all groups, there was a small — 1.8% — increase in recidivism during the pretrial period, with low-risk groups becoming less likely to be arrested after bail reform.
“The high-risk subgroup was just somebody that had recent criminal history, which was defined by having an open pending case,” said Koppel. “If you’re at a hearing and at that time, there’s another case that is winding its way through the courts … we’re going to define you as a high-risk group. For the low-risk subgroup, on the other hand, we said we don’t want any criminal history that’s visible, to us at least. That meant no prior criminal convictions and no other pending cases that coincided with the case that we’re looking at.”
However, even the high-risk group was less likely to be re-arrested down the line. Long-term recidivism likelihood dropped by 1.1% for those individuals after pre-amendment bail reform was enacted. Overall, re-arrest rates dropped by 2%, with a “statistically significant” 2.7% reduction in felony re-arrest.
The researchers employed a proven “Difference-in-Differences” technique for their data, which allowed them to comfortably compare two time periods: before and after the first bail reform law went into effect in 2020. However, the report mentions some limitations, including outlying influences like pretrial supervision expansion and the impact of COVID-19.
While not examined in this study, previous research links pre-trial detention to long-term recidivism due to external factors like loss of employment, damaged social relationships, and criminogenic influences from jail. Detainment also contributes to carceral disparities, given that nonwhite defendants are more likely not to make bail, which feeds into a higher rate of plea deals.
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