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Algorithms & Instruments: The Effective Elimination Of New Jersey’S Cash Bail System And Its Replacement, David Reimel Iii
Algorithms & Instruments: The Effective Elimination Of New Jersey’S Cash Bail System And Its Replacement, David Reimel Iii
Penn State Law Review
Until 2017, every state conditioned pretrial release on cash bail. Judges across the United States predicted the risk individuals posed of failing to appear and the danger to the community. As a result, indigent individuals waited in jails merely because they could not afford their bail. In 2017, New Jersey spearheaded the movement to change how the bail system operates by passing the Criminal Justice Reform Act (“CJRA”), which created an objective decision-making tool called the Public Safety Assessment.
Today, New Jersey judges are no longer required to speculate about the future decisions of individual defendants. Instead, the Public Safety …