Criminal Law Commons^™

Does Bail Reform Increase Crime? An Empirical Assessment Of The Public Safety Implications Of Bail Reform In Cook County, Illinois, Paul Cassell, Richard Fowles

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Recently bail reform issues have been in the news across the country, as concerns about fair treatment of defendants and possible public safety risks from expanding pretrial release have collided. These issues involve important empirical questions, including whether releasing more defendants before trial leads to additional crimes. An opportunity to investigate this public safety issue has developed in Chicago, our nation’s third largest city. There, the Office of the Chief Judge of the Cook County Courts adopted new bail reform measures in September 2017 and reviewed them empirically in May 2019. Cook County’s Bail Reform Study concluded that the new …