The causal impact of bail on case outcomes for indigent defendants

2017/07/15 by Kristian Lum, Lum, Kristian, Mike Baiocchi +1
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Applications (stat.AP) #Artificial Intelligence in Law #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1707.04666

openalex publication_date 2017/07/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We use near-far matching, a technique for estimating causal relationships, to explore whether bail causes a higher likelihood of conviction. We find evidence of a strong causal impact. This paper was compiled as a submission to the 2017 Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning (FAT ML) workshop.

Related

• A Bayesian Model of Cash Bail Decisions
• Judging by Appearances? Auditing and Intervening Vision-Language Models for Bail Prediction
• IBPS: Indian Bail Prediction System
• Does Bail Reform Increase Crime in New York State: Evidence from Interrupted Time-Series Analyses and Synthetic Control Methods
• Rethinking recidivism through a causal lens