There is no evidence that bail reforms have affected crime rates, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School said in a new study, Bail Reform and Public Safety: Evidence from 33 Cities . Critics argue that bail reform — defined as efforts to reduce or eliminate money bail and its harmful consequences — increases crime and specifically, that the rise in violent crime during the pandemic resulted from bail reform. The Brennan Center says its study debunks these myths, building on the work of other scholars who have found little to no evidence of a connection between bail reform and crime in studies of individual jurisdictions. The authors compared crime data from 2015 through 2021 for two groups of cities, in particular statistics on violent crime (murder, robbery, and aggravated assault) and property crime (burglary, motor vehicle theft, and larceny).
The study says claims that bail reform increases crime are based on an incorrect assumption about bail reform itself — that it requires the release of people who may pose a threat to public safety. In fact, most bail reforms seek to remove the distorting influence of money, preserving judges’ ability to make informed decisions about who should be released or held until trial. The study compares data from 22 cities that had in place some type of bail reform with 11 that did not. It examines the impact of reforms according to whether they were implemented through legislation, court order or changes in prosecutorial policy.