instance, defendants may lose their homes, employ-
ment, contact with their families, and their reputations,
as well as experience the adverse effects of custody. In
addition, evidence suggests that the bail decision may
influence later decisions on a case, such as the decision
to plea, convict, and sentence. Here, defendants who
do not get bail are more likely to plead guilty or be
convicted and are also more likely to receive a custo-
dial sentence than their bailed counterparts.
Much of the past research, as noted previously, has
investigated bail decision making in the United States
and the United Kingdom. Studies have been conducted
by psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, and
legal scholars using methodologies such as experi-
ments involving decision makers being presented with
simulated cases, interview and questionnaire surveys
of decision makers, courtroom observations of bail
hearings, analyses of bail records and statistics, and
analyses of bail laws. While most of this body of
research has aimed to describe and explain how bail
decisions are made, several studies have explored
efforts to improve bail decision making. Overall, the
research has yielded consistent findings.Describing and Explaining
Bail Decisions
Researchers have aimed to describe and explain bail
decisions in terms of the variations in decision making
and the factors that influence bail decisions. Studies
have documented the variation in bail decisions made
across cases and across jurisdictions (courts or deci-
sion makers), as well as within jurisdictions (courts or
decision makers). There are apparent disparities in
how cases that vary in their extralegal characteristics,
such as the defendant’s gender and race, are dealt
with. In addition, different jurisdictions (courts or
decision makers) may disagree on how to deal with
cases that are similar. Beyond this, there is variability
where the same jurisdiction (court or decision maker)
is inconsistent in dealing with similar cases on differ-
ent occasions.
Research has shown that bail decisions may be
influenced by both legal and extralegal factors. Legal
factors include the nature and seriousness of the offense
the defendant is charged with, the defendant’s previous
convictions, and the strength of his or her community
ties. Specifically, bail is more likely to be denied or set
at a high amount if the defendant is charged with a seri-
ous offense, has previous convictions, or has weak
community ties. The extralegal factors that have beenfound to affect bail decisions include the defendant’s
gender and race and the police and prosecution’s rec-
ommendations. Here, denial of bail or its high amount
is more likely to be associated with the defendant being
male or non-White and a recommendation to deny bail.
In addition to identifying the factors that may influ-
ence bail decision making, some psychological studies
have examined how the information is processed to
form a decision. Here, there is evidence to suggest that
the bail decision is the result of a simple strategy where
only a few factors are considered rather than a more
complex strategy involving weighting and integration
of several factors.Improving Bail Decisions
Researchers and policymakers have attempted to
improve bail decision making by reducing discretion
and increasing the availability of relevant information.
As mentioned, the law affords the court considerable
discretion in how it makes bail decisions. There have
been attempts to reduce variability in bail decisions and
the influence of extralegal factors as well as increase the
accountability, transparency, and equity of bail decisions
by limiting this discretion through the introduction of
more precise guidelines. For example, in the United
States, bail guidelines that specify the factors that the
court should use and how they should make their risk
assessments have been developed and implemented in
several jurisdictions since the early 1980s. John
Goldkamp and colleagues have evaluated the utility of
such guidelines using randomized controlled trials and
pre-post analyses. They found that decisions made
under guidelines differed from those made without
guidelines in several respects, including that under
guidelines the bail amount was lower, there was an
increase in the use of nonfinancial conditions, and there
was a reduction in the time in pretrial custody. However,
the impact of guidelines appears to differ across juris-
dictions as they are applied and used differently.
There have also been efforts to increase the effec-
tiveness of bail decisions by improving the court’s abil-
ity to judge the defendant’s risk of absconding on bail.
The idea is that low-risk defendants, such as those who
have strong ties to the community and thus may be
unlikely to abscond, can be appropriately released. For
example, in the United States, the Manhattan Bail Pro-
ject (later renamed the New York Release on Recog-
nizances Project) involved the collection, verification,
and scoring of information on a defendant’s community
ties (e.g., residence, employment, and family situation)38 ———Bail-Setting DecisionsB-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:41 PM Page 38