Anna Harvey

New York University Website

Anna Harvey is Professor of Politics and Director of the Public Safety Lab at New York University. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. Professor Harvey is the Co-Director of the Criminal Justice Expert Panel.

Voting History

Pretrial detention

Reducing the number of people detained pretrial will lead to a net increase in crime in the medium- to long-term.

Vote Confidence
Disagree 8
Median Survey Vote Median Survey Confidence
Disagree 7
Comments

Several studies report that pretrial detention (mechanically) decreases reoffending pre-disposition, but increases reoffending post-disposition for marginal defendants, with no net effect on offending (Gupta et al 2016, Leslie and Pope 2017, Heaton et al 2017, Dobbie et al 2018). Reducing pretrial detention would not increase crime in the medium- to long-term if the latter effect remains at least as large as the former effect.

Ending the use of cash bail will meaningfully reduce the number of people detained pretrial.

Vote Confidence
Neutral/No Opinion 5
Median Survey Vote Median Survey Confidence
Agree 7
Comments

Ouss and Stevenson (2021) report that ending low cash bail requests had no effect on pretrial detention in Philadelphia, because those affected by the policy were generally able to make bail prior to the policy's implementation. Judges may also offset a broader prohibition on cash bail by increasing their use of detention orders, with unclear effects on the number of people detained pretrial.

Using risk assessment to inform detention decisions will meaningfully reduce the number of people detained pretrial.

Vote Confidence
Neutral/No Opinion 5
Median Survey Vote Median Survey Confidence
Neutral/No Opinion 5
Comments

A really well-designed risk assessment tool that was implemented faithfully might be able to reduce the numbers of people detained pretrial (e.g., Kleinberg et al 2018 QJE), but it's unlikely that most risk assessment tools are either that well-designed or are implemented faithfully (Stevenson and Doleac 2021).