Pretrial detention and mass incarceration: catalyst, correlate, or coincidence?

Abstract The well-documented growth in U.S. incarceration during the late 20th century can be attributed, in part, to sentencing practices that increased the probability that defendants were sent to prison and the length of time they served. Pretrial detention is one of the strongest predictors of these same outcomes. Defendants who are held pretrial have a higher probability of conviction, prison incarceration, and are subjected to longer sentences. The increasing reliance on and recent movement away from pretrial detention may be an overlooked mechanism undergirding America’s penal landscape. Conversely, the increased size of the pretrial population might reflect the tough-on-crime ethos that characterized much of the prison boom era, suggesting that both pretrial decisions and post-trial outcomes were driven by the same punitive fervor that gripped the country starting some fifty years ago. Drawing on novel data linking county-level jail and state-level imprisonment trends, we examine the impact of pretrial detention on incarceration rates over time. Pretrial detention is strongly associated with state incarceration rates, suggesting one possible mechanism through which local crime control decisions ultimately manifested in prison expansion. However, the factors that contributed to the rise of mass incarceration are also implicated as drivers of pretrial detention, portending a more nuanced relationship.