Everyday Injustice Podcast Episode 270: Impact of Bail on Crime in Los Angeles

Everyday Injustice

This week on Everyday Injustice, we talk with Johanna Lacoe, research director at the California Policy Lab on a recent study that looked at the short-term impacts of bail policy on crime in Los Angeles. There has been an emergency bail schedule instituted twice in Los Angeles since 2020. Lacoe also co-authored a report for California Policy Lab on the effect of bail reform in San Francisco after the Humphrey decision. “The In re Humphrey decision required the San Francisco County criminal court to set bail levels based on defendant ability to pay rather than the county bail schedule. Under this new policy, the rate of pretrial detention fell by 11%,” the study found. “We find defendants released pretrial were less likely to be convicted (a decline of 3 percentage points) in the post-Humphrey period. This decline in conviction rates was driven primarily by a reduction in the likelihood of plea bargaining,” it continued. Finally the study found, “There was no consistent, statistically significant change in subsequent arrests or convictions post-Humphrey across the estimation strategies.” Listen as Johanna Lacoe discusses the policy implications of the bail findings in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, and their applicability to California and bail policy in general.