Code and Data for: Does Cash Bail Deter Misconduct?

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Aurelie Ouss, University of Pennsylvania; Megan Stevenson, University of Virginia School of Law

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Code			08/11/2022 12:02:PM
Data			12/12/2022 11:07:AM
CashBail.dta	application/x-stata-dta	2.9 MB	12/19/2022 01:20:AM
Database_scheme.png	image/png	2.1 MB	12/12/2022 12:34:AM
README.pdf	application/pdf	139 KB	12/19/2022 01:27:AM

Project Citation:

Ouss, Aurelie, and Stevenson, Megan. Code and Data for: Does Cash Bail Deter Misconduct? Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2023. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-10-16. https://doi.org/10.3886/E159582V1

Project Description

Summary:

Courts routinely use low cash bail as a financial incentive to ensure that released defendants appear in court and abstain from crime. This can create burdens for defendants with little empirical evidence on its efficacy. We exploit a prosecutor-driven reform that led to a sharp reduction in low cash bail and pretrial supervision, with no effect on pretrial detention, to test whether such incentive mechanisms succeed at their intended purpose. We find no evidence that financial collateral has a deterrent effect on failure-to-appear or pretrial crime. This paper also contributes to the literature on legal actor discretion, showing that non-binding reforms may have limited impact on jail populations.

Funding Sources: Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice (N/A)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: court; failure to appear; judicial decision making; prosecution

JEL Classification:
      K14 Criminal Law
      K40 Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior: General
      K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

Geographic Coverage: Philadelphia, United States

Time Period(s): 2017 – 2018

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Published Versions

V1 [2023-10-16]

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DDI 2.5

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