NEW YORK — Bail is being set far less frequently across New York since the state’s landmark bail reform law took effect, but when bail is imposed it has become significantly less affordable and continues to reflect racial disparities, according to a new statewide report examining five years of pretrial decision-making.
The report, Bail Reform at Five Years: Pretrial Decision-Making in New York State, released by John Jay College’s Data Collaborative for Justice, analyzed court data from 2018 through 2024 to assess how New York’s bail reform law reshaped judicial processes statewide.
According to the report, after the bail reform law went into effect in January 2020, bail-setting and pretrial detention sharply declined. In misdemeanor cases, statewide rates of setting bail or remanding people directly to jail dropped from 15% to 5%; nonviolent felony cases fell from 55% to 29%; and violent felony cases declined from 71% to 55% from 2019 through 2024, as the Data Collaborative for Justice reported.
The study found that “from 2020 to 2024, New York’s judges detained nearly 75,000 fewer cases than would have been expected to be detained under pre-reform 2019 practices.” It also noted that in 2024 alone, “over 17,000 fewer cases were detained.”
One explanation researchers identified in the data was that “judges increasingly relied on supervised release as a non-monetary alternative to bail,” according to the report. The Data Collaborative for Justice said this shift helps explain the overall decline in bail-setting, even among cases that remained legally eligible for bail.
However, the report also found that rates of release on recognizance declined in several regions as a result, showing that the shift toward supervised release coincided with nearly a 10-point decrease in ROR (release on recognizance). For example, in 2024, the report stated that “ROR rates for violent felonies were just 22% in NYC, 21% in its suburbs, and 9% in upstate—low rates that appear at odds with prior statewide evidence showing that over 85% of people facing violent felony charges attend all of their court dates when they are released.”
Bail reform was intended to reduce the financial burden of pretrial release; however, according to the report, bail has become far less affordable over time since the law’s passage. The study showed that “when imposing bail, median cash amounts increased statewide from 2019 to 2024: from $500 to $2,500 for misdemeanors, $5,000 to $10,000 for nonviolent felonies, and $10,000 to $15,000 for violent felonies,” according to the Data Collaborative for Justice.
In addition, the report noted that bail posting declined sharply, stating that “only 9% of people statewide posted bail at arraignment in 2024 (down from 21% in 2019), and only 19% posted bail within five days in 2024 (down from 36% in 2019).”
Racial disparities and inequalities also persisted despite improvements in certain areas. The Data Collaborative for Justice reported that “in 2024, Black and Hispanic people both faced bail or remand in violent felony cases at rates 11 percentage points higher than white people in NYC (49% vs. 38%); 12 and 10 points higher, respectively, in the suburbs (60% and 58% vs. 48%); and 7 and 4 points higher, respectively, in upstate (81% and 78% vs. 74%).”
Olive Lu, associate director of research at the Data Collaborative for Justice, said that “an earlier DCJ report found that in the first two years of bail reform implementation, New York State judges were generally following the intent of the law by setting less bail and relying on non-monetary alternatives to detention,” according to a press release.
Michael Rempel, executive director of the Data Collaborative for Justice, said the findings highlight both progress and unresolved implementation gaps. “Amid clear accomplishments, we also found that the reform’s affordability provisions have been poorly implemented, and troubling and unjustifiable racial disparities remain,” Rempel said.
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