The Impact of Bail Reforms on Jail Population and Crime in Los Angeles

• In Event: Pretrial Decision-Making, Perceptions of Justice, and Criminal Legal Outcomes in the Light of Bail Policy Changes

Abstract

Pretrial detention and bail policy are the focus of significant reform efforts across the country, and critics frequently allege negative public safety impacts to shifts away from cash bail. We estimate the effects on jail population, arrests, and crime of three sharp bail policy changes in Los Angeles that occurred between 2021 and 2024. These changes included the shift from COVID emergency zero bail back to the county's normal bail schedule in July 2022, a court-mandated return to the emergency bail schedule for the LAPD and LASD in May 2023, and finally the countywide shift to the Pre-Arraignment Release Protocol, which decreases the use of cash bail in favor of risk-based detention decisions. Using several methods on public crime and arrest data from LAPD and public jail data from the Vera Institute of Justice, we find that while these bail policy shifts impacted jail populations, there were minimal or no impacts to crime. There is no effect on arrests for the first two policy shifts, but some evidence to suggest that PARP caused a slight decrease in misdemeanor arrests.

Author

• Thomas Sloan, California Policy Lab