Compensating Non-Convicted Pretrial Detainees: The Strategic Impact on Detentions and Convictions

This paper presents a formal model explaining how different legal rules governing compensation for non-convicted pretrial detainees impact the decisions of enforcers and courts when detaining and convicting individuals suspected of having committed a crime. The model shows that compensating every non-convicted pretrial detainee leads to too many convictions by increasing the cost of acquittals. It could also induce enforcers to apply pretrial detention more often than they should. Still, not compensating acquitted pretrial detainees avoids these two strategic effects but undermines other goals such as crime deterrence. By contrast, providing compensation only to those acquitted pretrial detainees whose innocence is more likely than their guilt prevents enforcers and courts from detaining and convicting too many defendants.