Pretrial Risk Evaluation Program

About the Program

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

Year: 2021

In 2019, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Superior Court and a community-based provider, Project 180, the Los Angeles County Probation Department and criminal justice systems partners, implemented a two-year pretrial project known as the Pretrial Risk Evaluation Program (PREP) pilot. The goal of PREP is to provide the court with an assessment regarding a defendant’s eligibility for an own recognizance release at both the pre-arraignment and arraignment phase of their court case. At the pre-arraignment phase, all new eligible arrestees in the County are evaluated for release by a Judicial Officer within four hours of booking, utilizing the Public Safety Assessment (PSA) tool. For those that remain in custody and have been charged with a new felony or misdemeanor criminal case and are being arraigned at one of our three participating courthouses, (Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center [CJC], Antelope Valley & Pomona), a written report, using The Criminal Court Assessment Tool (C-CAT) is submitted. Defendants can also be released with conditions under the Supervised Release Program (SRP) and connected to services provided by Project 180, in providing service needs. A six-month review reflects that 1,929 arrestees were released pre-arraignment, 1,349 at arraignment and 337 are being supervised under SRP.