The hidden harms of bond reform: Examining the impact of bond reform on restrictive conditions of release

In recent years, jurisdictions across the US have implemented different versions of bond reform with the intent to eliminate certain inequalities associated with money bond. Importantly, community members have noted concurrent increases in pretrial requirements, such as electronic monitoring (EM) and drug testing, and worry that instead of decreasing state punishment, bond reform builds larger and softer carceral nets, amounting to what abolitionists call a “reformist reform.” This study examined this relationship in Cook County, Illinois with non-participant observations of bond court before and after one such bond reform, Order 18.8A in 2017, which required that bond be set in affordable amounts. With these data, we first analyzed whether bond type changes after implementation and found increased rates of release on recognize. Then, we utilized logistic regressions that showed first, strong evidence that the use of restrictive conditions increased after implementation and second, mixed evidence on the impact of EM. In particular, we show that racism drives EM assignment, wherein Blackness is the strongest predictor of receiving EM post-implementation With these findings, we suggested that bond reform may lead to less incarceration, but that proponents of reform should consider possible consequences of reform. We proposed that instead of utilizing restrictive conditions of release, jurisdictions should instead implement transformative systems of supports not associated with the criminal legal system. Thus, bond reform may decrease the rate of pretrial incarceration and by doing so may incorporate legally innocent people into the carceral state through new and more diffuse forms of surveillance.