The Bail Book
A Comprehensive Look at Bail in America's Criminal Justice System

Examines the causes for mass incarceration of Americans and calls for the reform of the bail system.

Shima Baradaran Baughman (Author)

9781107131361, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 December 2017

328 pages, 5 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.58 kg

'Civil libertarians will predictably love this homage to the Eighth (and Sixth) Amendments but what may be less obvious is why the book is valuable to those of us committed to promoting justice and preventing injustice. Professor Shima Baradaran Baughman shows how more informed and thoughtful pretrial release decisions can reduce crime and avoid wrongful convictions. I recommend the book to anyone who cares about both fairness and justice.' Paul H. Robinson, Colin S. Diver Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania, author of Shadow Vigilantes: How Distrust in the Justice System Breeds a New Kind of Lawlessness (2018)

Mass incarceration is one of the greatest social problems facing the United States today. America incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than any other country and is one of only two countries that requires arrested individuals to pay bail to be released from jail while awaiting trial. After arrest, the bail decision is the single most important cause of mass incarceration, yet this decision is often neglected since it is made in less than two minutes. Shima Baradaran Baughman draws on constitutional rights and new empirical research to show how we can reform bail in America. Tracing the history of bail, she demonstrates how it has become an oppressive tool of the courts that disadvantages minority and poor defendants and shows how we can reform bail to alleviate mass incarceration. By implementing these reforms, she argues, we can restore constitutional rights and release more defendants, while lowering crime rates.

Introduction
1. History of bail in America
2. Bail as a constitutional right
3. The bail process: how pretrial operates and the types of release before trial
4. Bail and prediction of crime
5. Individual and societal costs of pretrial detention
6. Race and bail in the criminal justice system
7. Bail and the Sixth Amendment rights to counsel and jury trial
8. Pretrial detention and terrorism in post-9/11 America
9. International bail
10. Money bail
11. Optimal bail: using constitutional and empirical tools to reform America's bail system
Appendix 1
Appendix 2.

Subject Areas: Criminal justice law [LNFB], Law & society [LAQ], Prisons [JKVP1], Crime & criminology [JKV]