An Empirical Evaluation of the Impact of New York's Bail Reform on Crime Using Synthetic Controls

TL;DR

This study empirically assesses the impact of New York's bail reform on various crime rates using synthetic control methods, finding no significant effects on assault, theft, or drug crimes, with inconclusive results for burglary and robbery.

Contribution

It provides a rigorous synthetic control analysis of bail reform's effects on crime, offering new empirical evidence on its impact in New York.

Findings

No significant impact on assault, theft, and drug crimes.

Inconclusive effects on burglary and robbery.

Robustness checks support null findings.

Abstract

We conduct an empirical evaluation of the impact of New York's bail reform on crime. New York State's Bail Elimination Act went into effect on January 1, 2020, eliminating money bail and pretrial detention for nearly all misdemeanor and nonviolent felony defendants. Our analysis of effects on aggregate crime rates after the reform informs the understanding of bail reform and general deterrence. We conduct a synthetic control analysis for a comparative case study of impact of bail reform. We focus on synthetic control analysis of post-intervention changes in crime for assault, theft, burglary, robbery, and drug crimes, constructing a dataset from publicly reported crime data of 27 large municipalities. Our findings, including placebo checks and other robustness checks, show that for assault, theft, and drug crimes, there is no significant impact of bail reform on crime; for burglary and robbery, we similarly have null findings but the synthetic control is also more variable so these are deemed less conclusive.