Judicial Decision Guidelines for Bail: The Philadelphia Experiment, 1981-1982

The purpose of this study was to test the utility of draft guidelines in informing judicial decisions about bail. A sample of judges, based upon a stratified quota sampling design, was selected from the Philadephia Municipal Court to rule on sample cases. Eight judges were randomly selected to use guidelines and be "experimental judges," and eight others were randomly selected to be nonguideline or "control judges." Data for the sample cases were taken from defendants' files. Variables provided in this collection include number of suspects involved, number of different offenses charged, most serious injury experienced by the victim(s), preliminary arraignment disposition, amount of bail, socioeconomic status and demographics of the defendant, prior criminal history of the defendant, and reason for granting or denying bail.

Data and Resources

Field Value
accessLevel public
aiCategory Not AI-ready
bureauCode {011:21}
catalog_@context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
catalog_@id https://www.justice.gov/data.json
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
catalog_describedBy https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
identifier 3738
internalContactPoint {"@type": "vcard:Contact", "fn": "Jennifer Scherer", "hasEmail": "mailto:Jennifer.Scherer@usdoj.gov"}
issued 1985-05-24T00:00:00
jcamSystem {"acronym": "OJP_EXT", "id": 8, "name": "External system not available in CSAM"}
language {eng}
license http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
metadataModified 9/2/2022 6:22:00 PM
modified 1993-03-04T00:00:00
programCode {011:060}
publisher National Institute of Justice
publisher_hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
resource-type Dataset
sourceIdentifier https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08358
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash fc9ec6dfee83b04a29ba0e79f6593a5d42f62830628fea596e16d8c2e3f4cc4b
source_schema_version 1.1
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • AmeriGEO
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • CKAN
  • GEO
  • GEOSS
  • National
  • North America
  • United States
  • bail
  • criminal-justice-system
  • decision-making
  • judges
  • judicial-decisions
  • offenses
  • pretrial-procedures
isopen False
license_id us-pd
license_title us-pd
maintainer Open Data Office of Justice Programs (USDOJ)
maintainer_email opendata@usdoj.gov
metadata_created 2025-09-23T22:13:15.868821
metadata_modified 2025-09-23T22:13:15.868828
notes The purpose of this study was to test the utility of draft guidelines in informing judicial decisions about bail. A sample of judges, based upon a stratified quota sampling design, was selected from the Philadephia Municipal Court to rule on sample cases. Eight judges were randomly selected to use guidelines and be "experimental judges," and eight others were randomly selected to be nonguideline or "control judges." Data for the sample cases were taken from defendants' files. Variables provided in this collection include number of suspects involved, number of different offenses charged, most serious injury experienced by the victim(s), preliminary arraignment disposition, amount of bail, socioeconomic status and demographics of the defendant, prior criminal history of the defendant, and reason for granting or denying bail.
num_resources 1
num_tags 15
title Judicial Decision Guidelines for Bail: The Philadelphia Experiment, 1981-1982