Does Cash Bail Deter Misconduct?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ouss, Aurelie; Stevenson, Megan
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania; University of Virginia
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20210349
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 150-182
• 关键词: regression-discontinuity; crime; detention

摘要

Courts routinely use low cash bail as a financial incentive to ensure released defendants appear in court and abstain from crime. This can create burdens for defendants with little empirical evidence on its efficacy. We exploit a prosecutor-driven reform that led to a sharp reduction in low cash bail and pretrial supervision, with no effect on pretrial detention, to test whether such incentive mechanisms succeed at their intended purpose. We find no evidence that finan-cial collateral has a deterrent effect on failure to appear or pretrial crime. This paper also contributes to the literature on legal actor dis-cretion, showing that nonbinding reforms may have limited impact on jail populations.