Pretrial detention increases future crime rates by 30% for misdemeanors

Pretrial detention does not reduce crime; it increases it. A landmark 2016 study in Harris County, Texas found that pretrial detention was associated with a 30% increase in new felony charges and a 20% increase in new misdemeanor charges within 18 months of the initial bail hearing. Research shows that more than a week of pretrial detention has the largest effects on reducing time until new arrest. Although detention temporarily suppresses crime while someone is locked up, this short-term reduction is mostly offset by an increase in recidivism within two years after case disposition. For juveniles, pretrial detention is associated with a 33% increase in felony recidivism and an 11% increase in misdemeanor recidivism within one year. The mechanism is straightforward: a person arrested for shoplifting who cannot post $1,000 bail sits in jail for two weeks, loses their job at a restaurant, gets evicted from their apartment, and exits jail unemployed and homeless. They are now far more likely to commit crime than they were before they were arrested. The system that claims to protect public safety is manufacturing the instability that drives future crime. This persists because politicians and judges face asymmetric political risk: if someone released pretrial commits a crime, the judge is blamed; if someone detained pretrial has their life destroyed and commits crimes later, no one connects those outcomes back to the detention decision.