California Suspects Released Without Bail Are More Likely to Reoffend: Study

A man in handcuffs in a file photo. Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images

People charged with crimes in California who were released under the state’s emergency “zero bail” policy enacted amid the COVID-19 pandemic were more likely to reoffend than those who were released after posting bail, a new study has found.

The study (pdf), conducted by the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office in California, compared a random sample of 100 of the 595 people who were released under the emergency bail policy in Yolo County between April 19, 2020, and May 31, 2021, to a random sample of 100 of the 147 people who posted bail between Jan. 1, 2018, and Dec. 31, 2019.

The district attorney’s office found that suspects released on zero bail were subsequently rearrested for 163 percent more crimes than individuals who posted bail, and those released on zero bail also reoffended at an average rate that was 70 percent higher than people who posted bail.

The average recidivism rate for those released on zero bail was 78 percent over 18 months, while the average rate for those who posted bail was 46 percent, according to the study.

More Violent Offenses Committed

Additionally, the study found that those released under the zero-bail policy committed new felonies 90 percent more often than those who posted bail, and they also committed new violence offenses 200 percent more often than those who posted bail.

“Even with allowances made for outside influences, it is apparent that recidivism under the emergency zero bail program was much higher than the rate for those who had previously posted some form of bail,” the study authors concluded.

California’s zero bail policy was enacted on April 6, 2020, by the California Judicial Council for individuals who were accused but not yet tried of low-level offenses, infractions, misdemeanors, and some felony offenses.

The policy aimed to help reduce the population of California’s jails and thus stop the spread of COVID-19 in incarcerated populations amid the pandemic.

The policy ended in June 2022, although some counties extended the order.

Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig told Fox News this week that violent crime began going up in the county almost immediately after the zero bail policy was implemented.

“The impacts of zero bail on violent crime are obvious, and they’re horrific,” said Reisig. “I mean, we have more people being shot at, stabbed, assaulted, robbed, beaten. These are real victims—and the numbers are staggering under zero bail.”

“And despite all of our best efforts to try and stop the practice, we were forced to continue to do the zero-bail system, and we saw our communities suffer as a result,” Reisig added.

Reisig said the latest study is important because it provides data for California lawmakers who he said “continue to believe” that the zero bail policy is “the answer to all of the problems in the criminal justice system” and that zero bails is somehow going to make things better.

“It’s not. It’s just going to make everything more dangerous,” he said.

While some experts have argued that zero bail policies lead to a rise in repeat crimes, some public policy groups, like the Brennan Center for Justice, have argued that elimination of cash bail is not responsible for rising crime rates.

In a March 2022 article, the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that there was no “clear connection” between recent crime increases and the bail reform law enacted in 2020 in New York based on police statistics and an analysis by the Times Union of Albany, adding that data “does not currently support further revisions to the legislation.”

“Of course, researchers and policymakers can and should continue to study the effects of bail reform on public safety, as more data and methods of analysis emerge,” the institute wrote. “Critically though, so far there is no evidence that bail reform has driven the increase in crime.”