An Empirical Evaluation of the Impact of New York's Bail Reform on Crime Using Synthetic Controls

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Angela Zhou, UC Berkeley; Andrew Koo, Cornell University; Nathan Kallus, Cornell University; Rene Ropac, New York City Criminal Justice Agency; Richard Petersen, New York City Criminal Justice Agency; Stephen Koppel, New York City Criminal Justice Agency; Tiffany Bergin, New York City Criminal Justice Agency

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  docs 12/04/2021 01:34:PM
  final 12/04/2021 01:35:PM
  mappings 12/04/2021 01:35:PM
  raw 12/04/2021 02:40:PM
  standardized 12/04/2021 02:41:PM
  viz 12/04/2021 01:34:PM
create_images.ipynb text/plain 2.1 MB 12/04/2021 08:34:AM
create_json.ipynb text/plain 5.6 KB 12/04/2021 08:34:AM
data_checks.ipynb text/plain 969 KB 12/04/2021 08:34:AM
diagnostic.png image/png 92.2 KB 12/04/2021 08:34:AM

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary
This is the raw data compiled for the project, "An Empirical Evaluation of the Impact of New York's Bail Reform on Crime Using Synthetic Controls"

Abstract: 
We conduct an empirical evaluation of the impact of New York's bail reform on crime. New York State's Bail Elimination Act went into effect on January 1, 2020, eliminating money bail and pretrial detention for nearly all misdemeanor and nonviolent felony defendants. Our analysis of effects on aggregate crime rates after the reform informs the understanding of bail reform and general deterrence. We conduct a synthetic control analysis for a comparative case study of impact of bail reform. We focus on synthetic control analysis of post-intervention changes in crime for assault, theft, burglary, robbery, and drug crimes, constructing a dataset from publicly reported crime data of 27 large municipalities. Our findings, including placebo checks and other robustness checks, show that for assault, theft, and drug crimes, there is no significant impact of bail reform on crime; for burglary and robbery, we similarly have null findings but the synthetic control is also more variable so these are deemed less conclusive.



Related Publications

Download this project

Published Versions

V1 [2021-12-04]

Export Metadata

Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

Report a Problem

Found a serious problem with the data, such as disclosure risk or copyrighted content? Let us know.

This material is distributed exactly as it arrived from the data depositor. ICPSR has not checked or processed this material. Users should consult the investigator(s) if further information is desired.