Criminal justice reform implemented in New Jersey at the start of 2017, including a bail process that focuses less on money and more on the defendant's risk, has helped reduce arrests in the Garden State and cut the amount of time presumably innocent individuals are spending behind bars, according to a study released Thursday.

The MDRC Center for Criminal Justice Research used statistical methods to predict what would have occurred without the reforms for a year, and compared those findings to actual results.

"MDRC's findings confirm that bail was almost never used as a condition of release in the year since the legislation went into effect," said Cindy Redcross, director of the center and lead author of the study....

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