Do Bail Information Schemes Really Affect Bail Decisions?

Bail Information Schemes gather and provide information on a defendant’s community ties to the court. Past evaluations have concluded that schemes are effective because more defendants are granted bail. However, the evaluations include possible confounds and other limitations, thus threatening the validity of their findings. They are also incompatible with research showing that magistrates do not always attend to community ties information. Here, an experiment examined the effect of community ties information on magistrates’ bail decisions on hypothetical cases. It was found that schemes do not significantly affect decisions, although they do serve to significantly increase confidence in decisions. Implications for the future of schemes are discussed. The bail decision arises whenever a case is adjourned for trial, sentence, or appeal. In the English criminal justice system, magistrates can bail a defendant unconditionally, with conditions such as curfew, or remand a defendant in custody, until the next hearing of the case. This decision has significant consequences for defendants and society. For example, compared to their bailed counterparts, remanded defendants are more likely to lose their homes, jobs, and family ties (Hammond 1988), and they are more likely to plead guilty, receive a custodial sentence, and less likely to be acquitted (for example, Davies 1971). On the other hand, the public is victimised by defendants who offend on bail (Brown 1998). Magistrates’ bail decisions are governed by legislation (that is, the Bail Act 1976) stipulating that bail should be granted, except in certain circumstances. These exceptions include the defendant’s failure to surrender to previous court bail, or the court’s satisfaction that there are ‘substantial grounds’ for believing the defendant would abscond, for example. In theory, defendants with strong community ties (for example, dependants, employment, and fixed address) have more to lose if they abscond (for example, Home Office 1988). Thus, they pose a low risk of absconding and may be ‘safely’ bailed. The opportunity to make just and defensible decisions is, however, hampered by the lack of relevant information (for example, Dhami 2001; Hucklesby 1996; King 1971). Brief details of the defendants and cases appearing in court on a particular day are presented on a court sheet, and this may be supplemented with information provided by the prosecution, defence, or defendant. King (1971) found that in 23 English courts, 245 The Howard Journal Vol 41 No 3. July 2002 ISSN 0265–5527, pp. 245–262  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2002, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA community ties information was given in only 35% of cases, and that ‘it was usually sparse and rather vague in nature’ (p. 91). Recently, Dhami (2001) observed that the community ties information in two English courts mostly concerned residence. Hucklesby (1996) reported that supplementary information was available in only a third of the cases in three Welsh courts, and in 41% of these, it was of limited breadth. Indeed, magistrates rarely probe for information (Dhami 2001; East and Doherty 1984; Hucklesby 1996). In order to overcome the lack of community ties information provided to courts, Bail Information Schemes (BISs) were re-introduced in the English system in 1987, after a brief period of operation in the mid-1970s. Probation officers collect, verify, and provide largely positive information about a defendant’s community ties to the prosecution and defence, who then relay it to the court. In courts, BISs target defendants awaiting their first appearance, who are likely to be remanded in custody because the police remanded them in custody. In prisons, BISs target remanded defendants awaiting their second court appearance. Officers operating schemes do not make any recommendation regarding bail, although they do exercise discretion in the cases selected, and the information collected, verified, and presented. Past evaluations of BISs have concluded that magistrates were more likely to bail defendants when provided with bail information (Fiddes and Lloyd 1990; Godson and Mitchell 1991; HM Inspectorate of Probation 1993; Lloyd 1992; Mair 1988; Stone 1988). However, these evaluations are methodologically limited, and their findings are incompatible with other research on magistrates’ bail decision making (for example, Dhami and Ayton 2001). In the following section, I shall review the past evaluations and discuss these two criticisms, before outlining the aims of the present study. Evaluating the Effect of Bail Information Schemes BISs originated in America in the 1960s, when the Vera Institute of Justice organised the Manhattan Bail Project (Ares, Rankin and Struz 1963). Ares et al. (1963) evaluated this scheme by randomly assigning defendants to either an experimental or control group. The recommendation (for or against bail) was conveyed to the court for the former group and it was suppressed for the latter. It was found that whereas 60% of the experimental group were bailed, only 14% of the control group were bailed. The schemes subsequently spread to other courts in America (Tobolowsky and Quinn 1993). By contrast, no quantitative evaluation was made of the first English scheme (Pearce and Smith 1976). On the basis of interviews with magistrates and observations of prosecution and defence practices, it was concluded that the provision of community ties information ‘seems to encourage more frequent granting of bail at first appearance’ (Pearce and Smith 1976, p. 48). The agencies (that is, Home Office and probation service) responsible for BISs in the English system, have now conducted quantitative evaluations of the schemes. Stone (1988) evaluated BISs piloted over a year in eight English courts. Using statistical models, it was predicted that over all courts, 29% of defendants who would otherwise have been remanded in custody,