Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Bridgewater State University

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Bail-Bond

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Law

Assessing Risk And Cash Bail In Massachusetts, Brittany M. Gammett Apr 2019

Assessing Risk And Cash Bail In Massachusetts, Brittany M. Gammett

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The use of risk assessments to determine the outcome of bail hearings has the potential to eliminate inequality in bail decisions and establish an impartial uniformity for the use of bail in jurisdictions across Massachusetts – but only when the assessments are based on empirical evidence and combined with judicial discretion. In April of 2018, Massachusetts passed a criminal justice reform bill. Under the new reform, a judge must take into account a defendant’s ability to pay bail when a bail amount is set. I measured the success of the bill through an ethnographic study, by sitting in on bail …