California Policy Lab

When someone is arrested and cannot afford bail or a private lawyer, they stay in jail and have to wait several days before they are assigned a public defender at arraignment. This time in jail imposes legal, social, and economic costs, from a higher chance of conviction to loss of employment or wages. Low-income individuals bear the brunt of these costs because many cannot afford to post bail to secure their own release, nor can they afford to hire a lawyer to negotiate their release. The County of Santa Clara Public Defender’s Office designed a program to address these problems by providing legal counsel to low-income people shortly after their arrest. In early 2020 they piloted the Pre-Arraignment Representation and Review (PARR) program using a rotating schedule that offered PARR services one day per week. This quasirandom implementation enabled the research team to estimate the impact receiving PARR services had on release and case outcomes. Participation in the program decreased jail time and convictions, and increased case dismissals. This policy brief is a condensed version of a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper: The Effect of Pre-Arraignment Legal Representation on Criminal Case Outcomes.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278