Financial Release Conditions

What Are Financial Release Conditions?

Most jurisdictions — outside of a few states that passed pretrial reform measures — routinely impose financial conditions of release when making pretrial release decisions. This means that if a person can afford to pay the financial condition set by a judicial officer — an amount frequently determined by a fixed bond schedule — the person is released. If the person can’t afford to pay, they stay in jail.

This can result in the release of people with $50,000 bonds who pose a threat to community safety and the detention of others with $500 bonds who could safely be released.

Financial Conditions Increase Negative Impacts

Financial conditions contribute to the negative impacts of pretrial detention, including:

• Increased pressure to take a plea deal
• Greater likelihood of a guilty verdict
• Harsher sentences
• Higher rates of rearrest
• Disruption or loss of housing, jobs, and family

Financial Conditions Increase Disparities

On average, Black, Latino, Indigenous, and other people of color receive higher financial conditions than similarly situated white people. This is a major contributing factor to the disproportionate detention rates in these communities.

Financial Conditions Don’t Improve Pretrial Outcomes

Financial conditions don’t do what they’re supposed to do: improve pretrial outcomes. Research studies have concluded that secured conditions — where the person must pay money upfront to be released — do not increase law-abiding behavior or rates of return to court.

Eliminating Financial Conditions

The use of financial conditions — particularly secured financial conditions — should be abolished. States should provide the courts with a process to make intentional detention decisions for the limited pool of people legally eligible to be detained.

Jurisdictions without an intentional detention process should use financial conditions only when a judicial officer finds that no other condition of release can reasonably assure community safety or lack of flight. If the intention is for the person to be released, financial conditions should not be used.

References for research on the use of financial release conditions increasing disparities [1] and not improving pretrial outcomes are listed below. [2]