First Judicial District Attorney Bond Initiative - Four Years In

History and Implementation

When I took office, the 1st Judicial District Attorney’s Office (1st JDA) adopted a rational, transparent, and binary hold/release bond model designed to prioritize community safety and eliminate release based on access to money. (See previous data story Community Safety Focused Bond Reform.) The policy was a shift from prior practices and includes the following:

• Trained, experienced Deputy District Attorneys (DDAs) develop recommendations and staff advisement hearings.
• Recommendations are limited to Personal Recognizance (release) or Cash Only (hold).
• Recommendations are structured based upon a decision-making matrix that considers the charge and actuarial pretrial risk assessment (“CPAT”) score.
• Data and research are reviewed regularly to inform and refine the policy.

The April 2021 change of practice and the judicial response was abrupt, as illustrated below.

Deputy DA (DDA) recommendations were primarily split between Personal Recognizance (PR) and Cash Only, while Cash/Surety requests – previously 75% of cases - were nearly eliminated.

Judicial orders were immediately responsive to our new policy, with judges increasing orders for PR and Cash Only, and decreasing Cash/Surety orders.

Four years of data demonstrate consistent and sustained adherence to bond policy by our office.

The 1st JDA recommends approximately half of cases to PR and half to Cash Only (cumulative 2021-2025, below left ).(1) Judges order approximately half of cases to PR, 33% to Cash/Surety, and 17% to Cash Only (cumulative 2021-2025, below right).

Recommendations from our office appear to influence judicial decision making.

High alignment (90+%) between our PR recommendations and court orders (below, left).

Partial alignment (36%) with Cash Only recommendations; most (53%) result in Cash/Surety order (below, right).

Generally, cases heard at advisement have high court appearance rates.

Most cases are ordered to Pretrial Services and have an overall appearance rate of 88%. Risk level is the strongest predictor, with appearance rates ranging from 95% for CPAT 1 defendants to 70% for CPAT 4 defendants. Generally, felony cases have higher appearance rates than misdemeanor cases. Assault (93%) and DUI (95%) cases show some of the highest court appearance rates, while drug possession (<70%) and theft (76%) cases have lower appearance rates.(2)

Cash Only bonds appear to have a greater impact on both court appearance rates and pretrial detention than Cash/Surety bonds.

Bond Type/Amount and Court Appearance. Generally, cases that post Cash/Surety bonds are more likely to result in a Failure to Appear (FTA) than cases that post a Cash Only bond.(3,4)

Additionally, the relationship between Cash Only bond amount and FTA appears strong: as the bond amount increases, the rate of FTA decreases consistently (below, light blue). In contrast, FTA appears less dependent on Cash/Surety bond amounts, particularly between $0 and $9,999. Cases with Cash/Surety bonds in the $5,000-$9,999 range have only slightly lower FTA rates than those with Cash/Surety bonds between $0-$499 (below, dark blue).

Bond Type/Amount and Pretrial Detention. The ordered bond type and amount also impact the likelihood of pretrial detention.(5)

For Cash Only bonds, pretrial detention becomes increasingly likely as the bond amount increases (below, light blue). In contrast, Cash/Surety bond amounts show little effect on pretrial detention until reaching $10,000, with a pronounced jump in detention for bonds $100,000 or more (below, dark blue).

Key Finding: A $10,000 out-of-pocket “tipping point” guides our bond recommendations.

Our regular review and analyses of data have revealed several key insights that now inform our office’s bond recommendation practices:

• Most individuals ordered to a secured monetary bond (Cash Only or Cash/Surety) are released pretrial.
• Secured monetary bonds primarily delay release: as the bond amount increases, the time to release from jail increases.

• The “tipping point” for majority detention is $10,000 out-of-pocket. Most defendants ordered to Cash Only bonds of $10,000 or more, or Cash/Surety bonds of $100,000 or higher (6), are not released.

Structured Decision Making decreases disparities at initial bond setting.

In addition to prioritizing community safety, our bond policy is part of the office’s broader strategy to promote equitable outcomes for both defendants and victims.

In 2022 (below, left), our office was more likely to recommend PR bonds for white defendants (53%) than for non-white defendants (49%). This difference was only partially explained by variations in charge type and assessed risk. Judicial orders showed a similar pattern (below, right).

By 2025, our recommendations for white and non-white defendants are nearly identical (below, left). Because our requests strongly influence judicial bond orders, judicial decision making has also shifted in a more equitable direction, although the gap has not closed completely (below, right).

These results are highly encouraging, suggesting that the initial bond settings are approaching equity. However, many Cash Only bonds are later converted to Cash/Surety at subsequent hearings. Our office plans to continue analyzing the impacts of evolving bond practices on community safety, racial equity, and case outcomes.

Acknowledgment: Some of our analyses of pretrial outcomes and detention were made possible through collaboration with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and Jefferson County Justice Services. We are grateful for their partnership.

Notes

1. The data include pre-policy advisements from early 2021. Since implementation, Cash/Surety requests are typically 2-3% of recommendations and usually represent warrant cases where a Cash/Surety bond was previously set and the DDA makes a passive request of not objecting to “keeping bond as set.”
2. Justice Services analysis (John Hilgendorf). These data are only for cases where the person is released pretrial and assigned to Pretrial Services; it does not include cases where the individual is still in custody.
3. Here, FTA is measured as “at least one FTA on the case” according to our data dashboard.
4. This may be consistent with the “skin in the game” argument about secured money bonds; individuals posting cash receive their money (skin) back whereas posting a cash/surety bond requires a non-refundable deposit.
5. Here, pretrial detention is defined as three days or more in jail pretrial, according to our data dashboard.
6. Surety bonds typically require a 10% non-refundable deposit.