Investigating discriminative bail setting: Multivariate analysis on louisiana drug interdiction

The core findings in the analyses of drug cases in traffic arrests on Louisiana's Interstate-10 were indicative of discriminative de-mographic profiling (Bowling, Ruiz, & Reynolds, 2008; Ruiz & Lee, 2009; Ruiz & Woessner, 2006). Assuming that a similar pattern would exist in the bail set by the court, the current study examined data collected directly from arrest reports between 1995 and 1996 located in the record room of the St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office. The possible disparity in the bail across drug arrestees was tested using factorial analysis of variance and analysis of covariance and multiple regression analyses. Race was found to be a significant factor in discriminative bail setting. State of residence was also significantly related to the disparity, while gender was not found to be a correlate.