Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Pretrial - Detention Impacts

  • NCSL Pretrial Detention (2013)

    "States provide most defendants the opportunity for release prior to trial.

  • Pretrial Detention and the Right to Be Monitored (2014)

    "Although detention for dangerousness has received far more attention in recent years, a significant number of non-dangerous but impecunious defend

  • Pretrial Detention and Jail Capacity in California (2015)

    "California’s persistently overcrowded jails are facing additional challenges now that public safety realignment has shifted many lower-level offen

  • The Effects of Pre-Trial Detention on Conviction, Future Crime, and Employment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges (2016)

    "Over 20 percent of prison and jail inmates in the United States are currently awaiting trial, but little is known about the impact of pre-trial de

  • Decision Points: Disproportionate Pretrial Detention of Blacks and Latinos Drives Mass Incarceration (2016)

    "Politicians across the spectrum have begun advocating for criminal justice reforms to reduce the prison population in the United States.

  • The Downstream Consequences of Misdemeanor Pretrial Detention (2016)

    "In misdemeanor cases, pretrial detention poses a particular problem because it may induce otherwise innocent defendants to plead guilty in order t

  • The End of Debtors’ Prisons: Effective Court Policies for Successful Compliance with Legal Financial Obligations (2016)

    Conference of State Court Administrators.

  • The Immediate Consequences of Pretrial Detention: Evidence from Federal Criminal Cases (2017)

    "This paper presents evidence of the effects of pretrial detention status on criminal case outcomes in federal criminal cases.

  • Audit of the Department’s Use of Pretrial Diversion and Diversion-Based Court Programs as Alternatives to Incarceration (2016)

    "The Smart on Crime initiative, announced by the Department of Justice (Department) in August 2013, highlighted five principles to reform the feder

  • The Immediate Consequences of Federal Pretrial Detention (2019)

    This paper examines the effects of pretrial detention on case outcomes in federal criminal cases.

  • Gatekeepers (2019)

    Police in America arrest millions of people each year, and the likelihood that arrest will lead to jail incarceration has increased steadily.