UROP Project

Pretrial Justice and Community Bail Funds: A Collaborative Project with the Tallahassee Bail Fund

criminal justice; incarceration; inequality

Research Mentor: Jennifer Copp,
Department, College, Affiliation: Criminology and Criminal Justice, Criminology and Criminal Justice
Contact Email: jcopp@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor): Rebecca Ballard
Research Assistant Supervisor Email: rebecca.ballard@fsu.edu
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:

Looking for Research Assistants: Yes
Number of Research Assistants: 1
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors.
Project Location: remote
Research Assistant Transportation Required: No, the project is remote
Remote or In-person: Fully Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5-8, Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link:

• Day: Wednesday, September 2
  Start Time: 12:00
  End Time: 12:30
  Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/j/97476999985
• Day: Wednesday, September 2
  Start Time: 12:30
  End Time: 1:00
  Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/j/91215877010

Project Description

On any given day, more than 600,000 people are incarcerated in local jails across the U.S., a majority of whom have yet to be convicted of any crime and thus are legally presumed innocent. These “pretrial” defendants primarily remain in custody because they are unable to afford the monetary bail amount set in their case. A growing body of research has documented the immediate and long-term consequences of money bail and pretrial detention across multiple domains. In light of the growing recognition of the harms associated with unnecessary detention, a range of community responses have emerged to reduce the number of people detained on unaffordable bail and lessen the harms endured by defendants, their families, and their broader communities. One example is the community bail fund. Community bail funds help low-income defendants by posting their bail and, in many cases, connecting them to supportive services in the community. Despite the proliferation of bail funds, however, they have been subject to limited empirical examination.

To help address this gap, the Tallahassee Bail Fund is looking for a research assistant to develop and investigate original research questions related to client outcomes. Topics might include:
- Analyzing comparative demographic patterns across clients, potential clients, and all arrests in Leon County
- Analyzing legal case dispositions to compare plea versus trial rates between clients and non-clients
- Generating and analyzing patterns in rates of failures to appear
- Identifying correlations between time from booking to release date and other factors

The Tallahassee Bail Fund (TBF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that since its founding in 2020 has posted bail for people who cannot afford it in Leon County. The TBF is a grassroots, volunteer-run organization that operates on a revolving bail fund model, meaning that when a previous client’s case is closed and the county returns the funds to the organization, it uses those funds to post bail for somebody else. Its motto is “get free, stay free,” and as part of the “stay free” component it has a strong commitment to providing support throughout the pretrial period, partnering with licensed social workers at the Big Bend AFTER (A Fight To End Recidivism) Reentry Coalition (BBARC) to help clients access social services, secure housing and employment, and seek mental and physical healthcare as they await their court dates.

The TBF members, including a number of FSU faculty, are eager to support the UROP student in making this experience meaningfully their own and pursuing original research that is beneficial both to the organization and to the student’s personal and professional goals. The student may be asked to attend some of the organization’s weekly meetings (held virtually on Monday evenings).


Research Tasks: - Going through existing data to locate, look up, and complete missing information
- Going through existing data to format demographic and other entries for standardization
- Migrating old client data into new spreadsheets

Once these tasks are complete, the UROP student will work with their mentor and TBF team members to develop and pursue original research questions and activities based on their interests and goals.


Skills that research assistant(s) may need: - Required: attention to detail; basic familiarity with Google Sheets/Microsoft Excel; familiarity with, or willingness to be trained on how to navigate, court records sites
- Recommended: interest in law, criminal justice, and/or carceral reform; interest in practicing data analysis on real and evolving dataset with material local implications