The Effect of Pretrial Detention on Imprisonment Decisions
Open accessAbstract
A number of studies have addressed the respective influences of such legal factors as offense seriousness, and such extralegal factors as race, on imprisonment decisions. One factor that is not easily classified as either legal or extralegal—pretrial detention—has not received as much attention as the "typical" legal and extralegal variables, although some researchers feel that pretrial detention plays a pivotal role in imprisonment decisions. This exploratory article assesses the relationship between pretrial detention and the decision to incarcerate in adult felony cases in a Florida county, controlling for various legal and extralegal factors. Results indicate that those defendants who had been subject to pretrial detention were more likely to be incarcerated, and to receive longer sentences if they were incarcerated, than defendants who had been released pending case disposition.
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More recent scholarship has moved beyond imprisonment rates to include other forms of incarceration such as sentenced jail incarceration or pretrial detention, police contact, exposure to police violence, and criminal legal system contact that may not involve incarceration but remains consequential for social and economic life.
“More recent scholarship has moved beyond imprisonment rates to include other forms of incarceration such as sentenced jail incarceration (Turney and Connor 2019) or pretrial detention (Williams 2003), police contact (Geller and Fagan 2019), exposure to police violence (Edwards et al. 2019), and criminal legal system contact that may not involve incarceration but remains consequential for social”
From The Rise of the Carceral State: Foundations and Contours of a Rapidly Changing Criminal Legal System (2025) · cites this paper as Williams 2003
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Dobbie, W., Goldin, J., & Yang, C. S. (2018) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.20161503 · Cited by 564 · see citing works
The Rise of the Carceral State: Foundations and Contours of a Rapidly Changing Criminal Legal System
Wakefield, S., & Turney, K. (2025) · RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences · doi:10.7758/rsf.2025.11.3.04 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Williams, M. R.
- Affiliations
- Bowling Green State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Williams, Marian R.
- Venue
- Criminal Justice Review
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2003-09
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 299-316
- ISSN
- 0734-0168 (ISSN-L)
- 1556-3839
- OpenAlex
- W2131869544
- Cited by
- 91
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 4.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- libres.uncg.edu
- Locations
- Criminal Justice Review (publishedVersion)
- NC Digital Online Collection of Knowledge and Scholarship (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Law and Policy
- Keywords
- pretrial detention, incarceration, sentence length, pretrial release, extralegal factors, crime severity, racial disparities in sentencing, Florida
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