Pretrial Justice Clinic Policy Projects

• Fall 2022 - The Harms of Pretrial Detention

  The people that students in the Bail Practicum represent are detained simply because they are not rich enough to pay the cash bail that the court has set. In the 2021 In re Humphrey decision, the Supreme Court of California ruled that when setting bail, courts must conduct an individualized analysis of each person’s ability to pay when setting bail and that unaffordable bail is unconstitutional. While this decision should have shifted the landscape regarding pretrial release, what our students saw in court with respect to their clients’ cases over the 2022 Fall semester was a different story. Each week in class we were confronted with one injustice after another. Whether it was a judge refusing to set bail at an affordable amount as the law requires, imposing onerous conditions of pretrial release, or the inability of our clients’ to access confidential attorney visits, our clients faced harm and injustice at every turn. The selected essays below comprise the observations, reflections, and insights from students in the Bail Practicum after they litigated bail hearings in L.A. County courts.

  Read the report.

• Fall 2021 - Coming Up Short: The Unrealized Promise of In Re Humphrey

  Coming Up Short: The Unrealized Promise of In Re Humphrey is a report produced by the Policy Advocacy Clinic at Berkeley Law and the Bail Practicum at UCLA Law. It provides a comprehensive look at the impact of In re Humphrey on the landscape of pretrial detention in the state. The report reaches a grim conclusion: that implementation of this decision is coming up short.

  Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of documents across all of California’s 58 counties, the research team found that the promise of Humphrey, 18 months after it was decided, remains unmet. What has emerged through a review of copious data, correspondence, policies, news articles, and a statewide survey of defense attorneys is the following:

  1. There is no evidence that Humphrey has resulted in a net decrease of the pretrial jail population in California;
  2. There is no evidence that Humphrey has resulted in a decrease in bail amounts across California; and
  3. There is no evidence that Humphrey has resulted in a decrease in the average length of pretrial detention in California.

  Authors of the report are Alicia Virani, Stephanie Campos-Bui, Rachel Wallace, and two students from the UCLA Law Bail Practicum, Cassidy Bennet '22, and Akruti Chandrayya '22.

  Read the report.

• Fall 2020 - Counting the Days

  This report, authored by three UCLA School of Law students, uncovers that people incarcerated in Los Angeles County jails pretrial are being held for longer periods of time during the COVID-19 pandemic than prior to the pandemic. While 35% of the pretrial population in January had been in custody for six months or longer, in September it jumped to 41%. The percentage of Black and Latinx people in the jails increased during the pandemic. 36% of Black people detained pretrial in January had been in jail for 6 months or longer, but that number jumped to just over 44% by September. 

  The report draws from over 400 declarations submitted by people incarcerated in the County’s jails. It argues that if the County does not act to release people during the deadly pandemic and safely resume jury trials, there will be massive violations of the constitutional rights of people incarcerated pretrial and potentially deadly consequences for all those in the County's jails.

  Read the report.

  Read opinion articles about the report:

  • Op-ed: LA County fails to protect incarcerated population’s rights, health in pandemic by Rodrigo Padilla in the Daily Bruin (February 17, 2021)
  • L.A. County Jails Are Locking People Up For Longer During the Pandemic by Amy Munro in The Appeal (January 21, 2021)
• Fall 2019 - Creating a Needs-Based Pre-trial Release System

  “Creating a Needs-Based Pre-trial Release System: The False Dichotomy of Money Bail Versus Risk Assessment Tools” is a report authored by CJP staff and students at UCLA School of Law enrolled in 2019’s Bail Practicum. The report proposes an alternative that allows pre-trial detention to be used only in a very limited set of circumstances, while supporting those released pre-trial with community-based, voluntary services to ensure return to court and that other vital needs are being met. The report argues for robust pre-trial detention hearings and proposes a community care and support agency “CASA” that jurisdictions around the country could create to support individuals released pre-trial. In addition, the proposed model would not rely on risk-assessment tools to determine who is released, as there have been concerns that these tools may lead to an increase in racial disparities in the criminal legal system. The authors propose instead a new model that has the potential to reduce failures to appear, mitigate risk, and provide much needed support to people caught up in the criminal legal system.

  Read the brief.