Geographically Expanded Release Under Supervision (RUS) Program

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

The Geographically Expanded Release Under Supervision (RUS) Program is an initiative of the Erie County Probation Department to broaden the footprint of the RUS program through collaboration with underutilized local courts. The RUS program has been available to all Erie County courts for decades to supervise released defendants and help ensure their return for future court appearances, but use by local suburban courts was historically minimal. In anticipation of increased use of RUS by courts in association with the impending implementation of Bail Reform on January 1st, 2020, the Erie County Probation Department budgeted for additional staff and began collaborations with courts in larger jurisdictions. Three new Probation Officer positions were created, with two of the officers placed full time at high volume local courts, to work with the courts to increase both collaboration and case volume. Additionally, each officer was given a geographic territory and was tasked with establishing relationships with those corresponding courts. With the emphasis on geographically expanded RUS, cases from outside the City of Buffalo went from an average of ten cases per year from 2017-2019 to 284 and 269 in 2020 and 2021, respectively. This significant increase in cases also led to a greater percentage of total RUS cases derived from the emphasized geographic expansion areas, as it went from 2-3% between 2017-2019 to 54% and 47% in 2020 and 2021, respectively.