To Detain or Not to Detain? Using Propensity Scores to Examine the Relationship Between Pretrial Detention and Conviction

Recent work has found that individuals who are detained prior to their sentencing are more likely to be convicted, be sentenced to prison as opposed to jail or probation, and to receive longer sentences if convicted. Is this effect due to detention, or is it merely a result of the same underlying criminal propensity being considered separately at each stage of the sentencing process? This study uses propensity score methods to create more comparable comparisons between detained and released criminal defendants. The results of this study indicate that detention itself has an independent effect on the likelihood of conviction. Even after matching with available covariates, individuals who are detained are more likely to be convicted than those who are released prior to their trial.