Understanding Bail Reform Research and Propaganda (Part 1 of 4):
Bail Reform and Public Safety: Evidence from 33 Cities – A Critical Review
The Brennan Center for Justice Report
Released on August 15, 2024, the Brennan Center for Justice’s report, “Bail Reform and Public Safety: Evidence from 33 Cities,” has become a cornerstone for those advocating for cashless bail and broader bail reform. This study has been widely cited in media articles and stories supporting pretrial release reforms that are designed to reduce/eliminate reliance on secured monetary bail.
The Objective of the Brennan Center Bail Reform Study
Did bail reform initiatives implemented in U.S. cities during the study period influence crime trends, particularly in relation to cashless bail and pretrial release?
Methodology Behind the Bail Reform Analysis
- The researchers analyzed data from various jurisdictions to evaluate the causal effects of bail reform on crime.
- They compared major offenses from 2015 to 2021 in 22 cities with bail reform measures (including cashless bail options) against 11 cities without such changes.
- Reforms were categorized by implementation method: legislation, court orders, or prosecutorial policies affecting pretrial release.
- The study prioritized cities where bail reform significantly altered bail setting and pretrial release practices.
Key Findings on Bail Reform, Cashless Bail, and Crime Rates
- According to the report, statistical models indicated no significant difference in crime rates post-bail reform, suggesting cashless bail and enhanced pretrial release had no measurable impact on crime.
- The report challenges claims linking bail reform to crime spikes, finding no evidence even across diverse reform types.
- It concludes that bail reform is not a primary driver of crime fluctuations, whether increases or decreases in pretrial release scenarios.
These conclusions have permeated media narratives defending bail reform and cashless bail, portraying them as effective for safer communities through fairer pretrial release.
However, we believe that a closer look at the bail reform research doesn’t provide legitimate answers but rather raises more questions about the credibility and motive behind the study. Intuitively, releasing accused individuals via cashless bail without financial stakes or accountability seems counterproductive to public safety. So how could these soft on crime pretrial release policies make us safer? To uncover the truth, we simply read through the Brennan Center Bail Reform report and identified several areas that required additional scrutiny. This includes the findings of the report, the footnotes and sources in the report, as well as the self-admitted limitations and methodological challenges.
Limitations in the Brennan Center’s Bail Reform Research
As one reads the report, it doesn’t take long before the authors start identifying several data limitations associated with their bail reform research.
- Inconsistent Crime Data Across Jurisdictions: Crime data from the 33 cities varied widely, requiring manual adjustments for comparability. This data manipulation in bail reform studies introduces potential biases, undermining the reliability of conclusions on cashless bail and pretrial release.
- Counting Only the Highest Charge for Multiple Offenses: In reality, many defendants, especially repeat offenders, face multiple charges. By considering only the top charge, the study likely undercounts crimes, skewing results on bail reform‘s impact on public safety and pretrial release failure rates.
- Limited Focus on Just Six Major Crimes: Ignoring a broader range of felonies and misdemeanors, the report narrowed to six “worst” crimes. This selective approach may underestimate overall crime linked to cashless bail and lax pretrial release policies.
Beyond these, the report’s central chart—purporting to show a crime drop post-bail reform—warrants scrutiny.
Analyzing the Key Chart in the Bail Reform Report
As you can see in the chart “0” marks the point of the implementation of bail reform. At that point there definitely appears to be a drop in crime, especially early on. But what the researchers don’t point out is that the drop in crime began several months before bail reform was ever implemented (-4 to 0). In fact, the decrease in crime actually slows down after bail reform was implemented.
At about 4 months, crime starts to increase and between 4 months and 12 months, crime goes back up significantly. So, to say that bail reform and cashless bail policies didn’t lead to an increase in crime is not a legitimate nor accurate claim.
Lastly, if you look at the gray area on either side of the line representing crime (the findings margin of error) you will notice that it becomes wider as time increases. This means that the margin of error increased substantially over time. Based on this, the reality is that the increase in crime after the implementation of bail reform and cashless bail policies could actually be more substantial than the black line in the chart indicates. Claiming bail reform and cashless bail caused no crime increase ignores this trend in pretrial release outcomes. It really makes you wonder how this report could ever be considered or used as proof that there was no impact to crime after the implementation of bail reform when this chart so clearly shows there was an increase.
Funding and Influences Behind the Bail Reform Report
The report credits the MacArthur Foundation for support—a known opponent of secured bail, dedicated to promoting cashless bail and bail reform. Footnotes reference other anti-bail entities, including the Vera Institute, Data Collaborative for Justice, Quattrone Center, Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, Politico, and Brookings Institute. The involvement and citations provided by this network of progressive, anti-bail organizations questions the objectivity in evaluating pretrial release reforms.
Conclusion: Is This Bail Reform Research or Propaganda?
While promoted as evidence that bail reform, cashless bail, and expanded pretrial release have no link to crime rises, we view this report as biased propaganda. Methodological flaws, data inconsistencies, and funding ties render it unreliable for informing bail policy debates. Stay tuned for Parts 2-4, where we’ll dissect more studies on bail reform and its real-world implications for public safety and pretrial release.
Last updated: 1/29/2026
Understanding Bail Reform Research and Propaganda Series
The Brennan Center for Justice’s “Bail Reform and Public Safety: Evidence from 33 Cities.”
This study was released last August and has been one of the studies that has been getting the most attention.
Tulsa, Oklahoma Study
The next bail reform research study we are reviewing is currently circulating on social media and other online media sources. This study is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma by The Bail Project
Harvard Kennedy School – December 2021
The next study we are going to review is from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The study was released in December 2021 and, much like the previous two studies we have reviewed, is focused on trying to disprove the concept that bail reform policies have increased crime in our communities.
Is Bail Reform Causing an Increase in Crime – January 2023
Our last study in our Bail Research series is from the Harry Frank Guggenheim organization. As you will see, the pattern stays the same with this study. The same findings that bail reform has not increased crime, the same citations, the same sources, and the same self-cited limitations and deficiencies.
SJ Quinney College of Law, University of Utah
Does Bail Reform Increase Crime? An Empirical Assessment of the Public Safety Implications of Bail Reform in Cook County, Illinois
Paul G. Cassell & Richard Fowles, University of Utah
Februrary 2020
This next study examines the outcome of the Bail Reform Act of 2017 passing in Illinois. This piece of legislation eliminated the use of any sort of financially secured pretrial release from the state of Illinois. In other words, the only options available to anyone who is arrested are now 1. free taxpayer funded release or 2. no release (detention). Neither of which are good nor effective options.
It’s unreal how they only show parts they want you to see!
propoganda!~~~!!!!
Bail Reform Research and Reality: The I-Told-You-So Moment
By James Waldron Lindblad
For years, reform advocates have told the public that secured bail is unfair and unnecessary. They promised that “cashless bail” would make justice fairer without harming safety. But now, with President Trump’s August 2025 executive order ending “cashless bail” in Washington, D.C. and ordering a nationwide review, the question finally being asked is: where’s the evidence this ever worked?
Advocates often cite the Brennan Center for Justice report, Bail Reform and Public Safety: Evidence from 33 Cities, as proof that eliminating bail has no effect on crime. The media has treated it as gospel. Yet the closer one looks, the more the study reads like advocacy dressed up as science.
Flawed Data, Flawed Conclusions
The Brennan Center claims that reforms in 22 cities between 2015 and 2021 showed “no statistically significant difference” in crime compared to 11 unreformed cities. That conclusion depends on data so inconsistent that researchers had to manually “adjust” figures across jurisdictions just to make them comparable. In practice, that means they normalized the data to fit a model—something no serious criminologist would do without strong caveats.
The study also counted only a defendant’s most serious charge and ignored lesser offenses, even though repeat offenders typically face multiple simultaneous counts. Then, the researchers limited analysis to just six “major crimes,” excluding property crimes, mid-level assaults, and drug offenses—the very categories most affected by bail decisions. When you exclude the evidence of failure, success becomes inevitable.
Even their key chart gives the game away. Crime began declining months before bail reform was enacted and started rising again afterward. The widening “confidence band” around the data means uncertainty increased over time. That’s not stability—it’s noise. Yet the authors still concluded bail reform had no effect.
Following the Money
The Brennan Center’s principal sponsor, the MacArthur Foundation, is the driving force behind the Safety and Justice Challenge, a national initiative devoted to abolishing secured bail. Other acknowledgments read like a roster of anti-bail activism: the Vera Institute, the Quattrone Center, the Data Collaborative for Justice, Brookings, and Politico.
If a bail association funded a paper proving that secured bail reduces crime, critics would cry bias. The same skepticism should apply here.
Reality on the Ground
Outside the spreadsheets, the results speak for themselves. In New York, after cashless bail took effect in 2019, burglary and larceny suspects were being re-arrested before their paperwork cleared. Lawmakers were forced into an emergency partial rollback. In Illinois, the 2023 SAFE-T Act abolished cash bail statewide, and prosecutors reported rising failures to appear even before full implementation. On the West Coast—in Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles—open drug use, theft, and public disorder have become normalized. These are not statistics; they are the everyday consequences of removing accountability.
What the Data Don’t Capture
Crime statistics can’t measure the damage caused by eroded trust. When people see repeat offenders cycling in and out of custody within hours, they stop believing the system works. Victims stop reporting. Officers stop arresting. Prosecutors quietly dismiss marginal cases. Each step masks the problem further, creating the illusion of stability even as real safety declines.
Bail by sufficient surety restores that balance. Families and bail agents ensure appearances at no cost to taxpayers. It reinforces the presumption of innocence while maintaining accountability. That’s fairness with responsibility—something “cashless” systems can’t replicate.
Hawai‘i’s Lesson
Hawai‘i has long modeled a better balance. Judges retain discretion to release on recognizance, assign supervised release, or set secured bail by sufficient surety. That flexibility protects both rights and public safety. The Fair Bail Act, now before the Act 245 Penal Code Review Committee, builds on that foundation by clarifying standards, ensuring statewide uniformity, and preserving judicial discretion.
We all want fewer people held in jail unnecessarily—but safely. True reform gives judges more tools, not fewer.
The Takeaway
The Brennan Center report claims to show bail reform “works,” but the reality outside its spreadsheets says otherwise. Communities are less safe, trust is weaker, and the same defendants keep returning.
This isn’t about pride—it’s about validation. For years, bail professionals, judges, and families warned that untested “cashless” experiments would fail. Now, even the numbers can’t hide it. Accountability isn’t cruelty. It’s justice that works—for defendants, for victims, and for every community that deserves both safety and fairness.
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