For more than a year, a local nonprofit has been asking certain inmates inside the Bexar County jail if they’d like to participate in a years-long study that gives them a 50-50 chance of getting bailed out of jail for free.
While there has been other research into the negative impacts pretrial incarceration can have on a person’s life, this study by the nonprofit Therapeutic Justice Foundation and researchers with Harvard Law School’s Access to Justice Lab applies a scientific, randomized control approach more common in medical or pharmaceutical research to Bexar County inmates. Inmates who cannot afford bail and do not have a violent history are randomly selected, with half receiving free bail. Those who aren’t selected are part of a control group.
One year into the multi-year study, so far researchers have signed up just under half of their targeted 1,000 to 1,400 participants in the Justice Study, according to the Harvard lab’s faculty director Jim Greiner.
The study is aimed at analyzing the effects pretrial incarceration has on people who have been charged with nonviolent, low-level offenses who likely couldn’t otherwise afford bail, Greiner said. “What does [pretrial incarceration] do to them — to their health, to their socio-economic circumstances [and] to their family situation?” he asked.
Critics of the cash bail system say it disproportionately keeps low-income and people of color who haven’t been convicted of a crime in jail, thus blocking them from social and economic opportunities. This study aims to test that theory.
Greiner and the researchers are keeping an open mind about what the data, which will likely take several years to collect and analyze, may show.
“Maybe we do need bail to deter people from doing things we don’t want them to do — or maybe the consequences [of incarceration] aren’t all that bad,” he said. “We’re not sure yet. What we want to do is find it out with a rigorous test.”
Regardless of the results, the study aims to help inform elected officials about what works and what doesn’t.
“Suppose it turns out that bail is not effective. Maybe you take the money you’re spending on the bail system and invest it somewhere else,” Greiner said.
Most inmates at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center do not qualify for the program as the majority of the population is either charged with a violent crime, have been sentenced or are awaiting transfer to prison or a psychiatric hospital.
Despite its work to remove nonviolent offenders from the jail population, the study will likely not relieve the demand for mandatory overtime that has long plagued local jailors, as that issue is largely tied to supervising inmates who have serious mental health issues.
How the study works
In the study, recently arrested individuals who are charged with a low-level, nonviolent crime, who don’t have a violent criminal record or domestic abuse in recent history and who can’t afford bail, are approached by representatives of the Therapeutic Justice Foundation, a nonprofit that supports programming and specialty courts aimed at rehabilitation.
If the inmate agrees to take part in the study, they are entered into a random lottery to receive free bail from the foundation — it’s essentially a coin flip, Greiner said.
“If the coin flip goes one way, then you’ll experience the criminal justice system as though there had been no study, in other words, nothing changes,” he said. “If the coin flip goes the other way, then the Therapeutic Justice Foundation will use funds … to bail you out” and make connections to support services.
Those who do not receive bail are still allowed to seek other means of release, but they’ll be on their own.
All participants, including those who did not get free bail, will answer survey questions about their lives for about two years after enrollment while researchers track their legal and administrative outcomes.
By removing the cash bail barrier for people who would otherwise likely not be able to afford it, Greiner said this study can give a more precise picture of bail’s impact for nonviolent offenders, rather than simply comparing outcomes of people who can and cannot afford bail.
“The people who can get out [without a grant], are likely the ones that either have access to their own money or have access to a social network that will raise money for them,” he said. “And the people who can’t don’t have access to those things.”
Greiner anticipates that they will be enrolling people into the study for another year or so, “then we need to follow everybody with surveys for two years. And then we need time to gather all the data, especially the administrative records, and do a lot of number crunching.”
The study is also taking place in the jails of Douglas and Lancaster counties in Nebraska. Those participants are expected to be mostly white and Black, while Bexar County was selected in part because of its majority Hispanic population.
Another reason for the decision was how receptive Bexar County officials were to hosting such a study, Greiner said. “There are a lot of folks who would say: ‘This isn’t for us,’ or ‘We already know all the answers.’ … It’s refreshing to work with the stakeholders in Bexar County.”
Bexar County District Court Judge Ron Rangel said he anticipates that the study will reaffirm what many people who work within the justice system already know.
“We don’t necessarily need a Harvard study to know the overall negative effects of incarceration on nonviolent offenders,” he said. “We know what’s good for humans. … It’s very clear that somebody in custody is going to have worse outcomes than somebody who’s not in custody.”
The study could further justify smarter investments, Rangel said. He estimated that slashing the bail system for nonviolent charges could potentially save Bexar County millions in administrative and jail costs.
“That’s not counting the millions, looking down the road, that could be saved with less crime … and healthier societies,” he added. “It’s a great opportunity for us within the system to ride that wave and push for these changes to occur.”
