More than three years into a New York criminal justice reform mandating that police write appearance tickets for certain low-level offenses, the overhaul has largely advanced a fundamental goal of reducing pre-arraignment detention, even though implementation has varied widely across the state, academic researchers said Wednesday.

Also, the change hasn’t been as great as expected based on explicit mandatory issuance provisions built into the statute, John Jay College’s Data Collaborative for Justice said of its report, “Evaluating the Impact of Desk Appearance Ticket Reform in New York State.”