A report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics that we’ve cited regularly in past articles points out that roughly half of all pretrial releases occurred within 1 day of arrest, and nearly 75% of such releases occurred within 1 week.
Release on Bail Bonds vs. Recognizance
In all cases, it appears that non-financial release (being released on one’s own recognizance) resulted in a quicker release than a financial release (cash bail or a bail bond). This is not precisely a revealing statistic, as it is fairly obvious to those working within the justice system that securing bail in the form of cash or a bond is quite likely to take longer. The process of bail determination means that both types of pretrial release defendants – those released with and without financial conditions – will have to wait until bail is determined to be released, with only those on financial release having to secure a bond or have family or friends collect the cash to pay for bail.
Not surprisingly, the amount of bail set also was directly correlated to the amount of time a defendant stayed in jail before being released. Release times for bail set at $5000 or less averaged 8 days, while amounts over $50,000 averaged 22 days.
Failure to Appear
The BJS study also found that most defendants released into the community to await their trials had been released in the past – 61% to be precise. Of these, 27% had failed to appear for a court date in the past, and nearly half had 1 or more prior convictions. Perhaps most alarmingly, 30% of those released had at least one prior felony conviction, and roughly 25% had an active case already pending against them at the time of their arrest.