Bail decision-making and pretrial services: A comparative study of magistrates courts in four Australian states

The remand population in Australia rapidly increased between 2008 and 2018, partly caused by legislative responses to some terrible offences committed by defendants while on bail. In this report from an inter-disciplinary research project funded by a Criminology Research Grant, we seek to answer three questions: the extent to which defendants applying for bail have vulnerabilities; to what extent risk analysis tools that purport to predict offending on bail and failure to appear can be relied upon; and the extent to which the emerging pre-trial services programs in Australia can reduce the remand population.