Study: Mecklenburg County’s Bail Reforms Lead to Increased Release Rates but no Significant Increase in FTAs or New Criminal Activity

A new report evaluates the impact of Mecklenburg County’s bail reforms. Cindy Redcross et al., MDRC Center for Criminal Justice Research, Evaluation of Pretrial Justice System Reforms That Use the Public Safety Assessment: Effects in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (2019) [hereinafter Evaluation]. The big take away? Mecklenburg released more defendants but did not see a significant increase in failures to appear (FTAs) or new criminal charges during the pretrial period. Id. at 2. Read on for details. Mecklenburg County has been on the forefront of bail reform in North Carolina. One reform implemented there is use of an empirical pretrial risk assessment tool. Specifically, in 2014 Mecklenburg County started using the Public Safety Assessment (PSA) risk assessment tool to better inform pretrial decision-making. Evaluation at 4 (until 2014, Mecklenburg had been using the Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument). The PSA uses nine factors from a defendant’s history to produce two risk scores: one representing the likelihood of a new crime being committed and another representing the likelihood of a FTA. Id. at 2, 3. The PSA also indicates if the defendant has an elevated risk of a violent crime. Id. (More information on the PSA is available here). Mecklenburg County uses PSA risk scores in connection with a county-developed decision-making framework (DMF) that provides a pretrial release recommendation. Under the DMF, release conditions become more restrictive as PSA risk levels go up. In Mecklenburg, pretrial services staff generate PSA scores and produce recommendations based on the DMF in connection with the [...]