The Effects of Legal and Extralegal Factors on Detention Decisions in US District Courts

Abstract

The Bail Reform Act of 1984 changed the law dictating release and detention decisions in federal court. Since its passage, few studies have examined judicial decision-making in this context. Legal research enables us to account for the structure and interpretation of federal detention laws and to analyze previously neglected measures of legal factors in our analyses. We use US Sentencing Commission data on a sample of defendants who were sentenced in 2007 (N = 31,043). We find that legal factors—particularly length of criminal history, having committed a violent or otherwise serious offense, and having committed the offense while under supervision of the criminal justice system—have the strongest relationships with the presentence detention outcome. A defendant’s age, race, and ethnicity have weaker relationships with detention. When we compare defendants who are similarly situated with respect to legal factors, the probability of detention is similar regardless of age, race, and ethnicity.