Pretrial services reduce costs, improve public safety

By Cherise Fanno Burdeen

With shrinking budgets and growing jail populations, counties across the nation are facing tough decisions on how to cut costs. National data shows that nearly two-thirds of the country’s jail inmates are pretrial detainees.

Improved pretrial services provide one avenue for counties to reduce jail populations, use resources more effectively and improve justice while maintaining community safety.

For the past 50 years, pretrial programs have helped ensure that defendants appear for court proceedings without wasting costly jail beds on defendants who can safely be released.

Pretrial programs play an important role in helping judges make more informed bail decisions by providing comprehensive information on each defendant using research-based methods that assess their likelihood for failure to appear in court, likelihood for re-arrest while on release and need for pretrial diversion programs. Once judges reach their bail decisions, pretrial programs then supervise defendants on release and notify the courts of any violation of release conditions.

Although operating a pretrial services program may appear cost-prohibitive, there are many models for providing these services cost-effectively, such as establishing a multi-county program, partnering with community- and faith-based organizations, or incorporating pretrial justice within existing structures such as jail administration or probation.

In central Virginia, eight counties have pooled resources for pretrial services, which are administered by the nonprofit OAR/Jefferson Area Community Corrections. Counties in Virginia have engaged in comprehensive pretrial services since the state enacted the Pretrial Services Act in 1994. The act gave cities and counties state funding to establish their own pretrial services agencies to systematically improve the ability of judicial officers to assess defendants’ risk to public safety while ensuring their appearance in court.

“Because OAR/JACC has a long history of successfully providing pretrial services, we as counties are able to take advantage of that expertise, maximize our resources and achieve a higher quality of service and effectiveness by working with them,” said Albemarle County Executive Bob Tucker. “Without this multi-county arrangement, it would be a challenge to provide the level of services available through OAR/JACC.”

Albemarle County serves as the fiscal agent for OAR/JACC’s pretrial services, but all of the counties that partner with OAR/JACC are represented on a Community Criminal Justice Board that reviews monthly reports and quarterly narratives on the work and progress of the organization’s pretrial services.

OAR/JACC dedicates six specially trained staff members to pretrial services. They interview and screen defendants using a validated risk–assessment tool on-site at two regional jails, complete record checks, make recommendations to the court and provide supervision to those who are released under certain conditions, which often include in-person visits, drug testing and substance abuse evaluation.

In 2007–08, the program completed roughly 1,200 interviews and pretrial investigations, made recommendations to the court in half the cases and received 687 placements for supervision. Of those under the supervision of OAR/JACC, 85 percent successfully avoided re-arrest and appeared in court for trial or sentencing — better than the national average, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. As a result, the counties saved hundreds of jail-bed days, their most expensive criminal justice resource.

To help county leaders learn more about successful programs like OAR/JACC and develop better jail management strategies, the Pretrial Justice Institute and  NACo are publishing Pretrial Justice and Jail Management: A Guide for County Officials. The free guide, funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, will be mailed to all of NACo’s chief elected officials and posted online this summer.

The guide will be a valuable resource to all counties, whether rural, suburban or urban. It features model programs with diverse organizational structures, advice on how to use pretrial services to better manage resources, and strategies for coordinating services with existing county agencies.

To further understand counties’ diverse needs and help counties strengthen pretrial services, the Pretrial Justice Institute will also conduct a national scan of pretrial programs to assess counties’ needs, abilities and accomplishments.

(For more information about pretrial services, please visit www.pretrial.org.)