Alison Siegler and Brandon Buskey Share an Op-Ed on How Jailing People Pretrial Undermines Public Safety

The law of unintended consequences: How federal judges may be driving up crime rates

Despite the fact that tough-on-crime rhetoric may have cost them votes in the midterms, prominent Democrats continue to double down on calls to roll back bail reform. Earlier this month, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) doubled down on her calls for bail reform efforts to be walked back, urging legislators to expand judges’ ability to lock up the accused while awaiting trial.

She’s not alone. New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) has been beating the drum against bail reform for months — and New Jersey lawmakers recently introduced a bill to scale back the state’s landmark bail reforms. Amid growing concerns about violent crime, politicians have seized on the idea that locking people up before trial leads to safer streets.

The problem is that decades of research show that mass pretrial incarceration actually undermines public safety. And a new study from Professor Siegler’s Federal Justice Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School suggests that judges are making the problem worse.

Read more at The Hill