A Generalized Outcome Test of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in the Bail Decision Process

In examining racial and ethnic discrimination in the bail decision process, Peter Reuter and his team initially worked with the District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency (PSA) to gather data. The aim was to apply the theory of outcome testing to the bail setting, to determine whether standard outcome tests are appropriate in continuous contexts such as bail-setting decisions; to develop a test that does not suffer from unobserved heterogeneity; and to develop, clean up and use a new dataset from the PSA to test for racial and ethnic discrimination in the bail-setting process. 

PSA data development remains incomplete, largely because investigators discovered clear problems with the race and heritage variables and the classification of individuals with respect to their Hispanic origin. The investigators determined that the PSA data could not be used for much of the testing. However, the data could be used for risk assessment and evaluation of pretrial services. Investigators are working on cleaning the data  before housing them at the Maryland Population Research Center.

Investigators are also developing an alternative dataset for testing in collaboration with Harvard University.  Investigators obtained very promising data from the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago, Illinois.  These data, which cover all bail decision made in the Central Bond Court throughout 2006, include identifying information, case information, case-decision information, and subsequent case history, providing a more general description of behavior at this particular stage of the criminal justice system.