What Is Cash Bail
Cash bail is money a court requires before it will release someone who has been arrested but not convicted. The payment is meant to make sure the person comes back to court. If they return for every date, the money comes back at the end of the case (Brennan Center). If they cannot pay, they wait in jail until the case ends or the amount changes.
Key facts
- About 68% of people in local jails at midyear 2024 had not been convicted (BJS).
- A bail bond company keeps a fee, generally 10% to 15% of the bail, that is never refunded (Brennan Center).
- Illinois ended cash bail for every charge on September 18, 2023, the first state to do so (Loyola CCJ).
- In New Jersey, people held on bail of $2,500 or less fell from over 1,500 to under 100 (NJ Courts).
- A 2025 order tells federal agencies to find funds they could cut from places that largely ended cash bail (EO 14342).
If Someone You Love Was Arrested
The first 48 hours decide the most, and a family can act in every one of them. Open the situation closest to yours.
Find your situation
Open the one closest to yours. Rules differ by state and county, so confirm each step with the court or a lawyer.
Someone I love was arrested
- Find where they are held. Most county sheriffs run an online inmate search, or you can call the jail and give the full name and date of birth.
- Ask when the first hearing is. Courts generally must hold a probable cause hearing within 48 hours of an arrest without a warrant, and bail is usually set there.
- Ask whether a public defender will be at that hearing. If you can hire a lawyer, a lawyer at the first hearing can argue for release or a lower amount.
- Gather proof of ties to the community for the hearing: a job, a lease, school enrollment, or a family member who depends on them. Judges weigh these facts when they set conditions.
The 48-hour standard is described in the Fifth Circuit ODonnell opinion. Hearing rules vary by state.
Bail was set and we cannot pay it
- Ask the lawyer to request a bail review hearing. A judge can lower the amount, change it to an unsecured bond, or order release with conditions.
- Look for a community bail fund near you in the National Bail Fund Network directory. Community bail funds pay bail for people who cannot afford it.
- Tell the lawyer about any job, childcare, or health need that jail time puts at risk. Those facts can support a lower amount.
Status: depends on state law. Bail funds operate in many cities and counties.
We are thinking about a bail bond company
- Know the cost first. A bond company charges a fee, generally 10% to 15% of the bail amount, and that fee does not come back, even if the case is dismissed. Many also require collateral, such as a car or a house.
- On a $2,500 bond, a 10% fee means $250 is gone for good. If you post the full $2,500 in cash yourself, it is returned once every court date is kept.
- Read the contract. Many require a co-signer who owes the full amount if the person misses court.
Fee range from the Brennan Center. Rules on commercial bail bonds vary by state.
They were released and have a court date
- Write down every court date and the conditions of release. Missing a date can lead to a warrant.
- Sign up for court text reminders if the court offers them. Harris County, Texas, for example, runs a lookup site at myharriscountycase.com.
- If they cannot make a date because of work, illness, or transportation, call the lawyer or the court before the date, not after.
Status: conditions depend on the judge and the state.
Here is how the first days usually unfold. The steps come from Harris County’s process as a federal appeals court described it; the timing is similar in many states.
How bail is set after an arrest
- Hour 0 Arrest and booking The person is fingerprinted, photographed, and held at the jail.
- Before the hearing A bail amount is proposed In many places a prosecutor or officer submits an amount from a bail schedule tied to the charge.
- Within 24 to 48 hours The first hearing A judge or magistrate finds probable cause and sets bail, release conditions, or detention.
- After the hearing Pay, bond, or wait The person posts cash, buys a bond, is released without payment, or stays in jail.
- Until the case ends Court dates If the person attends every date, cash bail is returned. A bond fee is not.
Source: ODonnell v. Harris County, No. 17-20333 (5th Cir. June 1, 2018), describing the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and Harris County local rules.
Cash Bail, Bail Bonds and Other Release
Cash bail is one of several ways a court can release someone, and only some of them cost money. The difference between a bond and cash bail is who puts up the money and whether it comes back.
How people get out of jail before trial
Source: ODonnell v. Harris County (5th Cir. 2018) for secured and unsecured bail; Brennan Center for bond fees; state court rules vary
“Cashless bail” means a system that stops using money as a condition of release. It does not mean everyone is released. Illinois, for example, ended cash bail and kept detention for people a judge finds too dangerous or likely to flee after a hearing (Loyola CCJ).
What Bail Hearings Looked Like in Harris County
Maranda ODonnell and other people arrested for misdemeanors in Harris County, Texas, sued the county over how it set bail. After eight days of hearings, a federal judge wrote more than 120 pages of findings. On June 1, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit summarized them (ODonnell v. Harris County).
Texas law required each bail decision to weigh five factors, including a person’s ability to pay. In practice, the court found, hearings “often last seconds, and rarely more than a few minutes.” Arrestees “are instructed not to speak.” Officials imposed the scheduled amounts “about 90 percent of the time,” and when the county’s own pretrial staff recommended release without payment, hearing officers rejected it 66 percent of the time. The right to a lawyer attaches at that first appearance, the Supreme Court held in a 2008 Texas case, as our 6th Amendment explainer on the right to counsel describes.
The appeals court put the result in one comparison. Take two people arrested for the same misdemeanor, with the same record. Both get the same bail. “One arrestee is able to post bond, and the other is not.” The one who pays, the court wrote, is “less likely to plead guilty, more likely to receive a shorter sentence or be acquitted, and less likely to bear the social costs of incarceration.” The court held that this violated equal protection.
The court did not end secured bail. It required notice, a chance to be heard and submit evidence within 48 hours, and “a reasoned decision by an impartial decision-maker.” Harris County settled in 2019. Under the consent decree, most people arrested for misdemeanors there are now released without paying (ODonnell Monitor, Ninth Report).
Most People in Local Jails Have Not Been Convicted
The share of people in local jails who have not been convicted grew from 59% in 2014 to 68% in 2024, after peaking at 71% in 2021. Jails shrank in that time, but the drop was among convicted people, who fell 32%, while the unconvicted count rose 3%.
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 58.9% |
| 2016 | 65.1% |
| 2018 | 66.4% |
| 2020 | 69.3% |
| 2022 | 70.3% |
| 2024 | 68.4% |
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jail Inmates in 2024, Table 11 (September 8, 2026). Share derived from BJS counts; unconvicted means awaiting court action on a current charge or held for other reasons.
At midyear 2024, local jails held 658,700 people, and 450,700 of them had not been convicted (BJS, Table 11). That count fell 3.6% from 2023, the first yearly drop since 2020. Not all of them are there because of money: some are held without bail, and some are held for another agency. The mass incarceration explainer covers how pretrial detention fits into the full count.
What Waiting in Jail Does to a Case
People held before trial plead guilty more often and get longer sentences than similar people who go home, and the best studies say the jail stay itself is part of the cause. Researchers compare defendants whose cases were randomly assigned to stricter or more lenient bail judges, so the only real difference is whether they waited in jail.
- 25%
- more likely to plead guilty when held before trial (Harris County misdemeanors)
- 43%
- more likely to be sentenced to jail when held before trial
- 2x
- as long: jail sentences for those held, on average
Those Harris County figures come from Paul Heaton, Sandra Mayson and Megan Stevenson’s study of hundreds of thousands of misdemeanor cases, which also found that people held before trial were more likely to be charged with new crimes later (Stanford Law Review, 2017). A second study, linking court records to tax data, reached the same conclusion about convictions: detention raised the chance of conviction mainly through more guilty pleas and cut defendants’ later formal employment. It also found the trade-off critics point to, fewer new crimes and missed court dates while the case was pending, with no net effect on crime after that (Dobbie, Goldin and Yang, American Economic Review, 2018).
Who gets held is not race-neutral. Using the same random assignment of judges in Miami and Philadelphia, David Arnold, Will Dobbie and Crystal Yang found that bail judges were “racially biased against black defendants,” with more bias among inexperienced and part-time judges, and that both Black and white judges showed it (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2018).
What Bail Reform Did in Four Places
Each major reform released more people before trial, and none produced the jump in missed court dates or new crimes its critics predicted. The evidence is not uniform, and the details matter.
Four bail reforms and what official evaluations found
Source: New Jersey Courts, Criminal Justice Reform Report 2022-2024; ODonnell Monitor, Ninth Report (March 4, 2026); Data Collaborative for Justice, Ropac (October 2025); Loyola Center for Criminal Justice, The First Year of the Pretrial Fairness Act (September 24, 2024)
New York City is where the longest follow-up is. The Data Collaborative for Justice compared people who had bail set or were jailed in the summer of 2019 with similar people released in the same months of 2020, and tracked both groups for 50 months (DCJ, October 2025).
| Group | Bail set or jailed (2019) | Released under the law (2020) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any re-arrest | 66% | 57% | −9 pts |
| Felony re-arrest | 40% | 33% | −7 pts |
| Violent felony re-arrest | 25% | 20% | −5 pts |
Source: Data Collaborative for Justice, Testing the Long-Term Impact of Bail Reform Across New York State (Ropac, October 2025). Quasi-experimental comparison with propensity score weighting.
The same study found the opposite for a small group. For people with a recent violent felony arrest, under 15% of those studied, release without bail was “consistently associated with elevated re-arrest rates.” The authors called the law a success by its own goals and said that increase “should not be overlooked.”
Illinois crime data points the same way, with a caution. Reported crime fell 11% statewide in the first half of 2024 compared with the first half of 2023. Loyola’s researchers wrote that this “does not answer the question of the PFA’s impact,” only that practitioners agreed “the sky did not fall” (Loyola CCJ).
Where the Bail Fights Stand
Where Each Bail Fight Stands
As of September 26, 2026
- Executive Order 14342 Agency action
Signed August 25, 2025. It told the Attorney General to list places that have "substantially eliminated cash bail" and told agencies to find federal funds to suspend there. The order does not require the list to be public. (source)
- Executive Order 14340 (Washington, D.C.) Agency action
Signed August 25, 2025. It directs federal agencies to hold D.C. arrestees in federal custody where the law allows and to seek federal charges and detention. (source)
- H.R. 5625, Cashless Bail Reporting Act Proposal
Passed the House 308-116 on May 14, 2026. It would require the Attorney General to publish a yearly list of places that release people accused of certain violent crimes without secured bail. In the Senate Judiciary Committee since May 18. (source)
- Harris County consent decree In litigation, decree in force
Four county judges and the Texas Attorney General filed motions to change the decree. The court monitor reported in March 2026 that it remains in effect while that litigation continues. (source)
- Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act Law
In effect since September 18, 2023. Cash bail is abolished for every charge. (source)
- New York bail law Law, amended
In effect since January 2020. Amended in July 2020, 2022 and 2023; the July 2020 framework remains the core. (source)
- New Jersey Criminal Justice Reform Law
In effect since 2017. The courts reported that from 2022 to 2024, first release decisions came within 48 hours more than 97% of the time. (source)
Source: Federal Register; govinfo bill status; ODonnell Monitor; Loyola CCJ; Data Collaborative for Justice; New Jersey Courts
The Debate Over Cash Bail
Both sides want people to come back to court and not commit new crimes. They disagree about whether money is the right tool.
The case for cash bail, in the words of the administration’s August 2025 order, is that people “whose pending criminal charges or criminal history demonstrate a clear ongoing risk to society” should be held, and that releasing them means officers “arrest the same individuals, sometimes for the same crimes, while they await trial” (EO 14342). Supporters also point to evidence the reform studies themselves report, such as New York’s higher re-arrest rates for people with recent violent felony arrests and New Jersey’s rise in new charges during the pandemic.
The case against cash bail is that money measures wealth, not risk. The trial court in Harris County found, in findings the appeals court quoted, that secured bail “does not assure better rates of appearance or of law-abiding conduct before trial” than release without it (Fifth Circuit). Reformers argue that a person who is dangerous can be held after a hearing, as New Jersey and Illinois allow, while a person who is not dangerous should not stay in jail because they are poor.
Much of the disagreement is about who the reforms cover. The strongest evidence for reform comes from misdemeanors and people without recent violent records. The strongest evidence for caution comes from the small group with recent violent arrests, which most reforms still allow judges to detain.
What the Bail Evaluations Leave Out
- Local practice varies. Loyola found that detention rates under the same Illinois law differed widely from county to county.
- Evaluations measure different things. New Jersey counts new charges while a case is open, New York counts re-arrests over about four years, and Illinois counts missed-court warrants. The numbers cannot be lined up as one scale.
- The pandemic distorted 2020 to 2022. Court closures lengthened cases, which gave people on release more time in which a new charge could occur.
- Money is not the only reason people stay in jail. Holds for probation, other counties, or immigration authorities keep people jailed no matter the bail amount.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is cash bail good or bad?
It depends on what you measure. Cash bail keeps people in jail when they cannot pay, including many held on low-level charges. Evaluations in New Jersey, New York City, Illinois and Harris County found that releasing more people without payment did not raise missed court dates or re-arrests overall, but New York found higher re-arrest among people with recent violent felony arrests.
What is the difference between a bond and cash bail?
With cash bail, the person or family pays the full amount to the court and gets it back if every court date is kept. With a bail bond, a company posts the amount and charges a fee, generally 10% to 15%, that is never returned.
Is cashless bail still available in Illinois?
Yes. Illinois abolished cash bail for every charge on September 18, 2023, under the Pretrial Fairness Act. Judges can still order detention after a hearing for certain serious charges.
How long can someone be held before seeing a judge?
Generally no more than 48 hours after an arrest without a warrant, for the probable cause hearing where bail is usually set. Some states and counties set shorter limits.
What You Can Do
- If someone you love is held because they cannot pay, check the National Bail Fund Network directory for a community bail fund, and ask their lawyer about a bail review hearing.
- Learn how your county sets bail. Ask your county court or public defender whether judges use a bail schedule and whether lawyers are present at first hearings.
- Vote in local races. District attorneys decide whether to ask for bail, and in many states judges and sheriffs are elected too.
- Tell your state legislators what you want. Bail rules are set mostly by states. Ask where yours stand on detention hearings and on ending bail for low-level charges. Find them at Open States.
- Read the related explainers on mass incarceration and private prisons to see how pretrial detention fits into the wider system.