Study: Bail reform has no connection to crime in NYC

NEW YORK CITY – In early August, the Brennan Center for Justice released a comprehensive report on 33 cities – including New York City – that found “no statistically significant relationship between bail reform and crime rates.” That means “there is no reason to believe that bail reform has led to an increase in crime.”

The study, available here, was authored by Brennan's Terry-Ann Craigie and Ames Grawert and covers serious crimes between 2015 and 2021, comparing data from cities that have had some form of bail reform with data from cities that have not.

What is bail reform and how does it work?

Bail reform refers to changes in the rules and practices surrounding the setting of bail, the amount someone must pay to be released from jail while awaiting trial. The goal of reform is usually fairness, advocates say, so people don't stay in jail just because they can't afford bail, especially for low-level crimes.

Pretrial release is not based on money, but on whether the person is likely to appear in court or whether he or she poses a threat to public safety.

Opponents, however, claim that bail reform poses a serious threat to public safety, increases recidivism, causes defendants to fail to appear in court, undermines public confidence in the criminal justice system, and more.

“I think people kind of assume that bail reform means that people accused of violent crimes will go free, but that's not really how bail reform works,” Ames Grawert, senior attorney at the Brennan Center, told Patch.

“This is true in New York, where bail has largely been abolished for misdemeanors and non-violent crimes. However, if someone is arrested on suspicion of murder, for example, judges still have discretion,” he said.

What about prior offenses or a criminal history? Can judges take these factors into account when deciding bail or pre-trial release?

“The bail law has been changed to allow judges to take criminal records into account in many cases,” Grawert said.

“The law provides some flexibility and is designed that way. Whether that flexibility is used is a good question. What is written on the page is one thing and how it is actually implemented in court is another.”

In New York State in particular, judges may consider a person's threat to public safety when making bail or pretrial release decisions, but the law focuses on the least restrictive conditions necessary to ensure the defendant's return to court.

What did the study reveal?

“If you're looking for evidence of a link between bail reform and crime, it's not clear that there is a link, even though we break down the data in many different ways. We're part of a growing body of work that finds little to no link between bail reform and changes in crime rates,” Grawert said.

Correlation is not causation, Grawert emphasized. In this case, that means that although two things happened at the same time, one did not necessarily cause the other.

This is especially relevant here in New York.

“We saw a dramatic increase in crime in New York and across the country in 2020. We also saw bail reform come into effect in 2020. [in New York]“It’s understandable that people make a connection between the two,” Grawert said.

Questions remain

A look at an NYPD index of seven major crimes since 2000 shows that the total number of such crimes in 2023 will have reached a level not seen since the mid-2000s.

“Focusing on the total number of crimes can be confusing,” Grawert said. “It's really important to look behind the scenes and see what's changed,” he explained.

“You see it [in this data]”Robbery, down sharply. Murder, down sharply. But you can see that some crimes have gone up sharply: aggravated theft, for example, which seems to be driven by an increase in shoplifting reports. There's also a long-term increase in aggravated assault – you kind of see that in this data – where it picks up in 2010 and continues to rise between now and 2023,” he continued.

For Grawert, the concrete is important.

“I think the real question is what's happening there. And unfortunately I don't have any really good answers,” he said.

“I think there are several reasons why aggravated assault rates are increasing over time. That's a really important trend and one of the main reasons for this change in the overall number of crimes,” he said. “The general trend may be a decrease in the murder rate, but no less important is the change in aggravated assault rates.”

And that's not all.

“Car theft has risen sharply since the low point in 2017. Some car brands – namely Kia and Hyundai – had security flaws discovered that went viral and people started exploiting them,” he said.

“This is not the only reason [the numbers have risen]but when you look at car theft and the types of cars being stolen, it's really worrying. We've also found a link between car thefts and the commission of more serious crimes,” he added.

In addition, most of the data do not record crimes, making them difficult to investigate.

“Many cities publish crime data and the FBI equivalent of seven major felonies. There are no misdemeanors on that list. So you have to find a set of comparable cities with solid data and then select misdemeanors that are recorded by that group of cities. That's really hard,” Grawert explained.

“One of the safest cities in the country”

“I will never be someone who downplays people's fears,” Grawert said. “People have the right not only to be safe, but also to feel safe.”

“When people who aren't New Yorkers talk about crime, they often fail to mention that New York is one of the safest cities in the country. That's not to say there isn't still a lot of work to be done, and even if New York were to return to some of its pre-pandemic lows, there would still be a lot of work to be done, because crime is very unevenly distributed across the city.”

Statistically speaking, Grawert believes New York City's safety may partly explain why any failure attributed to bail reform is so concerning.

“When a mistake is made in bail and someone is released who shouldn't be released and then does something horrible or disturbing, that is a clearly visible failure,” Grawert said.

“You don’t really see the success stories because you don’t see them again,” he continued.

“If someone is released on parole, keeps their appointments, gets a job and fights the charges, that person never appears in the data again and those stories are harder to tell, both qualitatively and quantitatively.”

Bug fixes

Whether the reforms work or not is a matter of opinion, but Grawert believes there is plenty of room for improvement – ​​inside and outside of what we commonly think of as the criminal justice system.

“When we talk about how to make bail reform work and make it as effective as possible, often the first thing people say is change the wording, change the law, repeal X, repeal Y,” Grawert said.

“Where bail reform is not working perfectly, there may need to be reforms that focus on implementation. In New York City, supervised release is a key part of bail reform, and that's a really important program, but they'll tell you they're really stretched. They need more people, more resources to make sure the pre-trial release infrastructure is working,” he continued. “Governor Hochul has responded to that, but there's still more to do.”

Other acts are outside the direct jurisdiction of the criminal justice system.

“There's really good research that shows that summer employment programs for youth help reduce crime. We've found that, the Manhattan Institute has found that – there's a lot of evidence to support that. These programs really work because they give kids meaning, purpose and a place to be when they're not in school,” he explained.

“There is also really good evidence for something simple: street lights.”

Another possibility?

“Creating safe places for communities to gather. These things are simple. You wish you had done them a decade ago, but now is the time.”

Have thoughts on bail reform? Email [email protected].