As I have an admitted soft-spot for (even quasi-) randomized control trials as a research design, a recent paper by Javier Osorio (Arizona-Govt. & Pub Pol’y) et al., Reducing Pretrial Detention: A Randomized Intervention with Public Defenders in El Salvador, caught my eye. In it, the authors exploit a "randomized intervention in El Salvador designed to improve public defenders’ capacities to secure pretrial release for defendants.”
To note that pretrial detention is a problem is to note merely the obvious. And in countries facing acute security challenges, such as El Salvador, there exists enormous pressure on criminal justice authorities to limit pretrial release. The authors contend that the overreliance on pretrial detention is driven in part by lack of information about defendants’ flight risks and the prospect of their committing further crimes while awaiting trial. And this information deficit is “the consequence of deficiencies in the public defender system, upon which economically disadvantaged citizens rely to ensure legal representation.”
To assess their hypothesis, the authors exploit an unusual (by U.S. standards, anyway) experiment involving a randomly assigned treatment to public defenders in four municipalities in El Salvador. “The treatment included specialized legal training, an improved interview protocol, and enhanced communication channels with the defendants, their relatives, and other institutions. These components sought to improve public defenders’ ability to gather evidence that would support pretrial release.”
The authors found that the treatment “increased public defenders’ requests for pretrial release by nearly 10%. The intervention also helped public defenders to secure pretrial release of their clients by 4.4%, although these results are weaker and sensitive to model specification.” The paper's abstract follows.
"Approximately one third of the global prison population is in pretrial detention, waiting for trial. Overreliance on pretrial detention exposes defendants to harsh conditions, exacerbates jail overcrowding, increases recidivism, and favors criminal governance. What policies can resource strapped countries implement to effectively address excessive pretrial detention? Based on a theoretical model focused on institutional-level efforts, we evaluate an experimental intervention implemented in El Salvador intended to increase pretrial release requests and reduce pretrial detention. The intervention randomly assigned public defenders to receive specialized legal training, an improved interview protocol, material resources, and increased communication channels. We find that this inexpensive, scalable program increased pretrial release requests from public defenders by nearly 10% (0.228 standard deviations) and increased the success in securing pretrial release by 4.4% (0.114 standard deviations). Heterogeneous treatment effect analyses suggest that the program increased strategic litigation among the most experienced public defenders and has distinct effects for those accused of minor and severe crimes. We find no evidence that the mechanism explaining our results involves changes in public defenders’ attitudes or perceptions about their work environments. Criminal justice programs focusing on pretrial detention may help reduce prison overcrowding in high crime countries."
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