Part 1: Taylor v. Taintor: The Landmark Supreme Court Case That Legitimized Surety Bail in America The bail profession has a long history. From biblical times to the modern era, bail has played an essential role in balancing individual liberty with the need to ensure…
The Three Most Significant Supreme Court Cases for Bail Bonds Have you ever wondered what role the courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, have played in ensuring the availability and existence of financially secured release in our criminal justice system? Over the past 120…
Part 6: Houston Police Officers’ Union (2022), Harris County Court Watch Pretrial release reform has become one of the most controversial issues in criminal justice policy, with advocates arguing that unsecured release creates a fairer system while critics warn it reduces accountability and increases public…
Part 5: Reisig (2023) – Yolo County’s Zero Bail Study Zero Bail Produced Significantly Higher Rates of Reoffending Compelling Evidence That Financially Secured Surety Bonds Deliver Superior Public Safety Outcomes This study serves as the fifth installment in our “Six Most Significant Bail Studies” and…
Part 4: Dr. Michael Block – The Effectiveness and Cost of Secured vs Unsecured Release Block, “The Effectiveness and Cost of Secured and Unsecured Release in California’s Large Urban Counties” (2005) Powerful Evidence for the Effectiveness and Cost Savings of Financially Secured Surety Bonds The…
Part 3: Dr. Robert Morris Dr. Robert Morris (2013/2014) / Clipper, Morris & Russell-Kaplan (2017) – Dallas County, Texas Pretrial Release Study In Part 3 of our series, The Six Most Significant Bail Studies, we look at a powerful study done in Dallas County, Texas,…
Part 2: Helland & Tabarrok, The Fugitive Evidence on Public Versus Private Law Enforcement from Bail Jumping (2004) In the ongoing debate over bail reform and pretrial release, one question stands out: What actually works best at getting defendants back to court? The second bail…
Part 1: The Cohen & Reaves Study The Most Comprehensive Pretrial Release Analysis Ever Conducted and Why Its Findings Remain Unrivaled Pretrial Release of Felony Defendants in State Courts, 1990–2004 In November 2007, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) statisticians Thomas H. Cohen, Ph.D., and Brian…
Bail Studies: The Six Most Significant Surety Bail Studies Ever Conducted The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth Over the last 30 years, there have been six key pretrial release studies that have not only supported the effectiveness of secured release over…
