Research SummaryPretrial reform is driving criminal justice policy debates across the nation. The In re Humphrey decision required the San Francisco County criminal court to set bail levels based on defendant ability to pay rather than the county bail schedule. Under this new policy, the rate of pretrial detention fell by 11%. We find defendants released pretrial were less likely to be convicted (a decline of 3 percentage points) in the post‐Humphrey period. This decline in conviction rates was driven primarily by a reduction in the likelihood of plea bargaining. These case outcome results are robust to an alternative strategy using propensity score matching and a difference‐in‐difference estimator to estimate effects for those most likely to be affected by the policy change. There was no consistent, statistically significant change in subsequent arrests or convictions post‐Humphrey across the estimation strategies.Policy ImplicationsAlthough the Humphrey decision originally applied only to San Francisco, a state supreme court decision in March 2021 extended the ruling to courts throughout California. The results also have implications for other states engaged in bail reform. These findings suggest that requiring bail to be set at affordable levels increases pretrial releases overall, specifically releases to pretrial supervision programs, with improvements in case outcomes and no apparent increase in subsequent criminal justice system contact. Counties or states without robust pretrial service options may not experience the same change in releases or other outcomes. Further, jurisdictions that detain people booked on lower level offenses at higher rates than San Francisco may experience a greater response to a policy change like Humphrey.

中文翻译：

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保释改革和审前释放：审查 In re Humphrey 的实施情况


研究摘要审前改革正在推动全国的刑事司法政策辩论。In re Humphrey 案的裁决要求旧金山县刑事法院根据被告的支付能力而不是县的保释时间表来设定保释水平。根据这项新政策，审前羁押率下降了 11%。我们发现，在 Humphrey 案之后，审前释放的被告被定罪的可能性较小（下降了 3 个百分点）。定罪率的下降主要是由于辩诉交易可能性的降低。这些案例结果结果对于使用倾向得分匹配和双重差分估计器来估计最有可能受政策变化影响的人的影响的替代策略是稳健的。在估计策略中，Humphrey 之后的后续逮捕或定罪没有一致的、具有统计学意义的变化。政策影响尽管汉弗莱案的裁决最初仅适用于旧金山，但州最高法院于 2021 年 3 月的一项裁决将该裁决扩展到整个加州的法院。结果也对其他参与保释改革的州产生影响。这些发现表明，要求将保释设定在可承受的水平会增加整体审前释放，特别是对审前监督计划的释放，案件结果有所改善，并且随后的刑事司法系统接触没有明显增加。没有强大的审前服务选项的县或州可能不会在释放或其他结果方面经历相同的变化。此外，拘留率高于旧金山的较低级别犯罪人员的司法管辖区可能会对像 Humphrey 这样的政策变化做出更大的反应。