Working Paper: NBER ID: w31289
Authors: Johanna Lacoe; Brett Fischer; Steven Raphael
Abstract: Low-income individuals arrested on criminal charges face disproportionately high rates of pretrial detention and conviction. We study a novel approach to addressing this inequity: providing low-income individuals with access to legal counsel immediately following their arrest. Focusing on a pilot program in a large urban county, we estimate the causal impact of early representation by a public defender on release and case outcomes, leveraging quasi-random variation in access to counsel pre-arraignment. Low-income individuals who met with a public defender shortly after arrest were 28 percentage points more likely to be released pretrial, and 36 percent more likely to see their cases dismissed, relative to otherwise similar individuals who would first meet with a public defender at their arraignment. These results suggest that providing timely access to legal representation could improve release and case outcomes for public defender clients.
Keywords: pretrial detention; legal representation; public defender; criminal justice
JEL Codes: K40; K42
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| early legal representation (K41) | pretrial release rates (K14) |
| early legal representation (K41) | case dismissal likelihood (J63) |
| early legal representation (K41) | likelihood of securing pretrial release (K40) |
| early legal representation (K41) | time spent in detention before and after arraignment (K40) |
| early legal representation (K41) | likelihood of conviction (K14) |
| early legal representation (K41) | case dismissal rates (J63) |