Research Brief 35

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Research Brief

A series of reports summarizing current research from CJA

No. 35

September 2014 Executive Director, Jerome E. McElroy

Director, Research Dept., Richard R. Peterson, Ph.D. Research Brief Editor & Deputy Director, Research, Mary T. Phillips, Ph.D. Graphics & Production, Raymond P. Caligiure Administrative Associate, Annie Su

CJA is a not-for-profit corporation that provides a variety of criminal justice services under a contract with the City of New York. CJA staff interview defendants arrested in New York City, make recommendations for pretrial release, and notify released defendants of upcoming court dates. CJA also operates two supervised release programs for nonviolent felony clients in Queens and Manhattan. The Research Department conducts studies addressing a broad array of criminal justice policy concerns. The Research Brief series summarizes the results of some of these studies.

New York City Criminal Justice Agency, Inc. 52 Duane Street New York, NY 10007 PHONE: 646 213-2500 FAX: 646 213-2650 WEB: www.nycja.org

© 2014 NYC Criminal Justice Agency, Inc.

PAYING FOR BAIL ON CREDIT By Mary T. Phillips, Ph.D. On March 26, 2012, the New up to a maximum of $2,500. A York County (Manhattan) Crimi- full refund is made when the case nal Court began a pilot program ends favorably for the defendant, for accepting bail payment by and a 3% fee is imposed when it credit card. The program was exends in conviction (same as for cash bail). The defenpanded to all five counties You of New York City starting dant must be physican use a January 28, 2013. credit card for cally present in the Prior to this procourthouse in order everything else — to pay bail by credit gram court cashiers did why not not accept credit cards card, after which reBAIL? for bail, even though the lease is immediate. law has authorized their use This research provides for decades. One hurdle was a preliminary assessment of the that the Office of Court Adminis- success of the program. We tration (OCA) had never set the examined the extent to which a amount of the administrative fee credit card option was set by the provided for in the law. OCA has courts and used by defendants now resolved this issue by ab- during the program’s first year of sorbing credit card companies’ Citywide implementation. Then charges without passing them we asked whether the program is along to clients. accomplishing its goals of helpUnder the program, the judge ing defendants gain release and must specify that a credit card is decreasing the time they spend in acceptable and the amount of bail detention, without raising failurethat may be paid by credit card, to-appear (FTA) rates. This Research Brief is adapted from New York’s Credit Card Bail Experiment (2014) by Mary T. Phillips, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Research Department The full report is available on CJA’s web site: www.nycja.org/library.php Research Assistance: Raymond P. Caligiure, Maria Annabel Mireles Systems Programming: Wayne Nehwadowich Address comments to the author at mphillips@nycja.org Please cite as follows, adapted to your citation style: Phillips, Mary T. 2014. “Paying For Bail On Credit.” Research Brief series, no. 35. New York: New York City Criminal Justice Agency, Inc. The mission of the New York City Criminal Justice Agency, Inc., is to assist the courts and the City in reducing unnecessary pretrial detention.


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