Black defendants receive bail amounts $7,280-$14,376 higher than white defendants

Studies in multiple jurisdictions show that Black defendants are systematically assigned higher bail amounts than white defendants charged with the same offenses. A study of bail-setting practices in Miami and Philadelphia found Black defendants were over 11 percentage points more likely to be assigned monetary bail and received bail amounts $14,376 higher than white defendants. Nationally, bail amounts are 34% higher for Black men and 19% higher for Latino men compared to white counterparts. In large urban areas, Black defendants accused of felonies are 25% more likely to be held pretrial. Because bail is set based partly on factors like prior criminal history, employment stability, and residential stability, and because these factors themselves reflect generations of systemic racism in policing, employment discrimination, and housing segregation, the bail system launders structural racism through a veneer of individualized assessment. A Black defendant is more likely to have prior contacts with police (due to over-policing of Black neighborhoods), less likely to have stable employment (due to hiring discrimination), and less likely to own a home (due to redlining and its legacy), all of which lead judges to set higher bail. The result is that Black people comprise 43% of the pretrial detention population despite being 13% of the US population. This persists because bail schedules and judicial discretion operate without accountability for racial disparities, and because the factors judges consider are proxies for race that are considered legally neutral.