New Reporting Act Forces AG to Publish Quarterly List of All 'Cashless Bail' Jurisdictions

The newly proposed Cashless Bail Reporting Act is pretty straightforward: it’s a transparency measure that doesn’t change any local laws but forces the federal government to keep score. Specifically, Section 2 mandates that the Attorney General publish a list online within 30 days of the bill becoming law. This list must name every state and local government that currently allows defendants to be released before trial without paying cash—either through a simple promise to appear (personal recognizance) or an unsecured bond (a promise to pay if they skip court, but nothing paid upfront).

The Federal Scoreboard for Local Justice

Think of this as the federal government creating a public database for local criminal justice policies. The AG’s office isn’t just publishing this once; they have to update the list every three months, or quarterly. For the average person, this means that if you want to know how your city or county handles bail—specifically, if they’ve moved away from cash bail requirements—you’ll have a single, federally maintained source to check. This is huge for researchers, journalists, and anyone trying to understand the different approaches states are taking to pre-trial release.

Who’s Doing the Work, and Who’s on the List?

This bill creates a clear mandate for transparency, but it also creates a new administrative burden. The federal government, specifically the Attorney General’s office, now has to dedicate resources to compiling and verifying this data every quarter. That’s a new job for someone to track down and confirm local policies across thousands of jurisdictions.

On the other side, the state and local governments that appear on this list—the ones using personal recognizance or unsecured bonds—will find their policies under a national spotlight. While the bill itself doesn’t change their laws, the public cataloging of their practices will inevitably lead to increased political scrutiny and debate. For example, a local city council that implemented an unsecured bond system might suddenly find their policy being cited in national news stories or used as a talking point in broader policy debates, simply because the federal government made their data easily accessible. This is about making local decisions transparent on a national scale, which is great for public awareness but potentially complicated for local politics.