A new statewide report examining New York’s bail reform five years after it took effect concludes that judges are detaining far fewer people pretrial than they would have under pre-reform practices—but the people who still face bail are increasingly hit with higher amounts they often can’t pay, and racial disparities in bail-setting remain significant.
The February 2026 analysis, “Bail Reform at Five Years: Pretrial Decision-Making in New York State,” uses Office of Court Administration data from 2018 through 2024 to measure how arraignment decisions changed across New York City, the downstate suburbs (Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester), and Upstate.
Fewer people detained statewide since bail reform took effect
The researchers estimate that changes in judicial decision-making after bail reform resulted in 74,738 fewer detained cases from 2020–2024 compared with what would have happened if 2019 practices had continued. The estimate includes 24,284 fewer detained cases in NYC, 26,868 fewer in Suburban NYC, and 23,586 fewer in Upstate courts.
Even in 2024 alone, the report estimates 17,038 fewer cases were detained than would have been under 2019 practices (with thousands fewer in each region).
The big driver: judges set bail (or remand) less often across nearly every charge type, and they increasingly used non-monetary conditions—especially supervised release—after the law expanded those options statewide.
For example, statewide misdemeanor cases with bail or remand fell from 15% in 2019 to 5% in 2024, while statewide nonviolent felony bail/remand fell from 52% to 29%.
2023 bail law amendments: No sign they increased bail-setting
One of the headline political fights over the last several years has been whether Albany’s later bail amendments would push judges to set bail more often in eligible cases.
This report’s conclusion: the June 2023 amendments did not lead to an increase in bail-setting. Using time-series trendlines and statistical modeling, the authors report no measurable bump upward after the changes took effect; if anything, bail/remand rates in bail-eligible cases trended modestly lower in the post-amendment period.
Bail is less common but when it’s set, often higher and harder to pay
A central goal of bail reform was to reduce the role money plays in who sits in jail pretrial. The report finds that while bail is imposed in fewer cases overall, bail amounts rose and payment rates declined.
Statewide median cash bail amounts increased substantially from 2019 to 2024, including:
- Misdemeanors: $500 → $2,500
- Nonviolent felonies: $5,000 → $10,000
- Violent felonies: $10,000 → $15,000
At the same time, bail payment became rarer. In 2024, for all charges combined, only 9% of people statewide posted bail at arraignment, and 19% posted within five days—meaning most people who faced bail remained detained, at least in the short term.
“Partially secured bonds” often weren’t priced to be the affordable option
Bail reform required judges to offer more affordable bail mechanisms, including partially secured bonds (typically 10% up front) and unsecured bonds. The report finds unsecured bonds were almost never offered, and partially secured bonds were frequently set at totals that undercut affordability.
In 2024, judges statewide set the partially secured bond (PSB) total higher than the cash total in 89% of cases, and PSB totals were more than double cash in 64% of cases. On average, PSB totals were 5.8 times the cash amount statewide.
The report also finds that outside New York City, PSB totals often exceeded insurance company bond totals, effectively steering people toward for-profit bail bond companies because the up-front cost can be lower even though fees are non-refundable.
Racial disparities persist in bail-setting: Especially in violent felony cases
The report concludes that racial gaps in bail-setting did not disappear after reform and remain pronounced in the categories where judges still have broad discretion.
Among cases currently eligible for bail, the Black-white gap in bail/remand rates narrowed slightly but persisted in every region from 2019 to 2024.
For violent felony cases, disparities remained large. In 2024, bail/remand rates were:
- NYC: 49% for Black and Hispanic people vs. 38% for white people
- Suburban NYC: 60% (Black) and 58% (Hispanic) vs. 48% (white)
- Upstate: 81% (Black), 78% (Hispanic), 74% (white)
The authors underscore that prior research has repeatedly found race/ethnicity is not meaningfully connected to court appearance rates, yet disparities in bail-setting remain wide in bail-eligible and violent felony cases.
Finger Lakes angle: what the county-by-county data shows—and what it doesn’t
The report includes county-level tables for courts covered by the Office of Court Administration dataset — specifically city and district courts. Counties that rely only on town and village courts are not fully captured, and the appendices mark those rows as “N/A.”
That matters locally: several Finger Lakes counties appear as not captured in the county bail-payment appendix, including Seneca, Wayne, and Yates (all listed as “N/A”).
Still, for counties that are captured in the dataset, the appendix highlights notable pre- to post-reform shifts:
- Ontario County: Overall bail/remand (all cases) declined from 38% (2019) to 30% (2024); among currently bail-eligible cases, 58% to 56%.
- Cayuga County: Overall bail/remand (all cases) declined from 52% to 34%; among currently bail-eligible cases, 66% to 59%.
- Monroe County: Overall bail/remand (all cases) declined from 32% to 28%; violent felony bail/remand fell from 84% to 63%.
The report also flags that Upstate overall saw broad reductions in bail/remand in nearly every county, with only a small number moving the other way in specific categories.
What this means going forward
Taken together, the report’s findings land in an uncomfortable middle for policymakers:
- Bail reform did what it promised in one major respect: it dramatically reduced how often people are detained pretrial statewide.
- But affordability goals weren’t met for the people who still face bail: amounts went up, payment went down, and “alternative” bail tools were often structured in ways that didn’t reliably make release easier—especially outside NYC.
- And racial disparities remain entrenched in bail-eligible and violent felony cases.
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