Michigan’s Criminal Justice Crossroads: Pretrial Issues in the Great Lakes State

This is part of a series on crime and justice in Michigan. Read the other posts here: Pre-Arrest, Post-Conviction.

This year began with newly elected Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp.) preemptively killing criminal justice reform bills, declaring them dead before discussions could even begin. His swift rejection sent a clear message that reform efforts would face an uphill battle in the new legislative session.

While urban centers like Detroit have seen historic declines in violent crime following the first round of bipartisan criminal justice reforms in 2021, many of the underlying issues in Michigan’s pretrial system persist. From rural counties struggling with jail overcrowding to urban centers grappling with lengthy case backlogs, these challenges don’t follow party lines or political boundaries. The decisions made during the pretrial phase—who is detained, who is released, and under what conditions—affect public safety, individual liberty, and taxpayer costs. But Michigan has an even bigger problem: The state doesn’t collect the data to know what’s happening or whether its policies are working.

A Dearth of Data Makes for Bad Decision-Making

Michigan is a criminal justice data desert. The state lacks comprehensive, current information about its own pretrial outcomes and jail populations. The Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration, which concluded its work in 2020, provided the most recent systematic look at these issues. However, the state has implemented several pretrial reforms since then without establishing ongoing data collection systems to measure their effectiveness. This creates a troubling blind spot for policymakers, who must make decisions about criminal justice policy without knowing whether their changes are working.

The absence of reliable, up-to-date information makes it nearly impossible to evaluate the impact of recent legislative changes or to identify emerging problems before they become crises. Counties operate with different data systems, reporting standards vary widely, and there is no centralized mechanism for tracking key metrics like pretrial detention rates, bail amounts, or case processing times. Michigan is essentially flying blind when it comes to understanding whether reforms are affecting public safety or achieving their intended fiscal savings.

Without consistent data collection and analysis, taxpayers and communities are left to bear the costs of a system that operates without accountability or evidence-based decision-making. In 2017 alone, counties collectively spent over $478 million on jails and corrections—a number that is most certainly growing. Michigan still lacks a statewide dashboard or reporting framework to track who is in jail, for how long, and why. The result is a criminal justice system that consumes substantial public resources without producing transparent outcomes. As this Michigan Data Landscape report warned, the continued absence of public data across multiple sectors (despite agreement on the need for it) creates the conditions for uninformed decision-making and a lack of trust in criminal justice institutions.

Failures to Appear Continue to Cost Communities

After an individual is arrested, they must appear in court to face the charges against them. If someone fails to appear on the scheduled date, it’s called a “failure to appear.” Most people don’t do this on purpose. When they do miss court, it’s often due to basic barriers like lack of transportation, inability to miss work, lack of childcare—or simply because they forgot.

Michigan studies show that most individuals attend their court dates, and state law generally provides a 48-hour grace period for first-time absences before issuing a bench warrant. Failure to appear was one of Michigan’s leading causes of arrest before the pandemic, and while those numbers have declined somewhat, it continues to account for a significant share of jail bookings. This strains local resources, as courts must issue warrants and law enforcement must locate, arrest, and book the individual into one of Michigan’s outdated and overcrowded jails, which keeps them from working or caring for their family.

It also diverts law enforcement resources from new crimes and ongoing investigations, often for reasons that have nothing to do with public safety risk or criminal intent. Yet many Michigan jurisdictions continue to treat failure to appear as a law enforcement problem rather than an administrative one. This response does little to alleviate the state’s significant court backlogs stemming from COVID-19 closures; instead, it creates additional court proceedings and extends case timelines.

The administrative disconnect is particularly glaring when it comes to basic communication tools. While the state has developed a unified system with court reminder capabilities that many courts have opted into, very few successfully use the system. Even in jurisdictions that offer reminders, the signup process is often cumbersome, dissuading the very people who would benefit most from timely notifications.

Lengthy Pretrial Sentences Lead to Poor Outcomes

When someone is arrested, a judge must decide whether to release them or hold them in jail until trial. This decision has profound consequences—not just for the individual defendant, but also for families, communities, and taxpayers across the state. The stakes are high in Michigan, as estimates show that most of the state’s jail detainees are presumed innocent and not convicted.

Bail—the mechanism used for pretrial release—remains a hot-button topic in Michigan. The state constitution includes a “right to bail” clause that affords defendants bail in all cases except for certain violent offenses where the evidence is overwhelming. Even so, many remain in detention, merely because of an inability to pay. A 2019 Wayne County study found that 38 percent of pretrial detainees were held on bail at $2,500 or less, while another 40 percent were held on bail between $2,500 and $10,000. Michigan also struggles with long waits for trial, which can leave defendants—many of them innocent—in custody longer than necessary.

The human and economic costs extend beyond the jail walls. When primary household earners are detained pretrial, families lose income and housing. When parents are jailed, children may be forced into foster care. Further, evidence indicates that detaining someone pretrial makes that person more likely to commit a crime in the future.

There has been bipartisan recognition of these problems and some initial progress on solutions; however, counties still shoulder the high costs of housing pretrial populations—a growing trend that has stretched over four decades. Unfortunately, additional efforts to implement meaningful pretrial changes have slowed due to a lack of reliable statewide data and a policy environment where fearful rhetoric shuts down conversations regarding evidence-based solutions to create a fairer and safer pretrial system.

Conclusion

Michigan’s pretrial system is stuck in a holding pattern. Despite years of warnings and some initial progress, the state continues to spend significant time and resources detaining people who are not dangerous—just forgetful or unable to post bail. Meanwhile, the state lacks the data necessary to assess whether current practices (or proposed changes) effectively promote public safety and accountability. Michigan doesn’t need sweeping changes right now, just a commitment to gathering local statistics, implementing practical solutions, and maintaining a clear focus on safely reducing jail overcrowding and easing pressure on the courts while maintaining public safety.