Finishing the Job: Modernizing Maryland’s Bail System

This Abell Report, written by John Clark of the Pretrial Justice Institute, provides an overview of why bail reform is urgently needed in Maryland; explores the recent efforts to achieve reform in Baltimore, and highlights recent progress in other states using evidence-based risk assessments that yield a more just, effective, and cost-efficient pretrial system.

What’s wrong with the current system?

• It results in economic and racial disparities;
• It allows defendants who pose a risk to community safety but have access to money to buy their way out of jail, and
• It ignores evidence-based practices that have been effective in other jurisdictions.

Other states, including Colorado and Kentucky, have implemented evidence-based reforms that could provide a model for Maryland. Indeed, over the past few years, two high-level state commissions have studied Maryland’s bail system and recommended a series of reforms that would result in a major overhaul of that system.

“Finishing the Job: Modernizing Maryland’s Bail System” offers a path toward implementing the necessary changes and calls on local and state leaders to take action now.