The 1984 Bail Reform Act: Organizational and Mandated Factors in the Decision to Detain

Abstract

The 1984 Bail Reform Act, recognizing danger as well as flight as a reason for detention before trial and providing for explicit detention, offers an opportunity to evaluate the effects of more precise guidelines on the release/detention decision and to determine the relative importance of legal variables, community lies and other social background variables to that decision. In this study, that evaluation takes place in a jurisdiction with a new pretrial services agency. Release on own Recognizance (ROR) rates increased significantly, in conjunction with an even greater increase in the use of conditional release. Recommendations of the U.S. Attorney and the Pre-trial Services Agency (PSA) regarding release and detention were less predictable than judicial decisions. For the magistrates, the application of guidelines for detention led to clearer distinctions among the oilier three options. In separating detention from secured bail, the guidelines led to more similar recommendations from the government and PSA. Offense dominated the recommendations of both agencies before and after the BRA, which, in turn, determined judicial decisions. Community ties declined in importance as the concurrently introduced sentencing guidelines combined with the BRA's criteria for detention to institutionalize offense, sentence and prior record as the definition of danger to the community.