Advocacy

The Pretrial Justice Institute advocates at the national, state and local levels to improve pretrial laws and policies. From time to time the Institute also provides support to other countries moving toward an adversarial system of justice.

Nationally, the Pretrial Justice Institute partners with the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies to provide a wide range of supports to pretrial programs. We work together to raise visibility and increase understanding of the importance of pretrial services among county officials, court officials and other members of the correctional systems. PJI serves as the NAPSA Service Director.  In addition to providing administrative and annual conference support, PJI supports the Board of Directors initiatives, such as increasing membership, developing robust member benefits, and collaborating to provide regional and state-based training and technical assistance to deepen evidence based policies and practices.

At the state and local level, the Pretrial Justice Institute collaborates with state groups to improve state pretrial laws and policies. This work ranges from participating in coalitions as issue experts, to providing speakers and drafting testimony, to helping develop solutions for jail crowding legislation. The Pretrial Justice Institute also meets individually with judges, county executives and others to assist stakeholders in determining pretrial laws, policies and practices that would be helpful in their jurisdictions.

Our partners include:

The National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies (NAPSA) is the national organization for pretrial professionals in release and diversion. NAPSA provides professional standards and education in the pretrial field, helps develop new pretrial programs, promotes research within the field and serves as a forum to exchange ideas among different agencies. The Pretrial Justice Institute, which considers NAPSA a sister organization, attends quarterly meetings of the NAPSA Board of Directors, contributes articles for the NAPSA News, organizes workshops for the Annual Training Conference, and works to coordinate national advocacy efforts.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has been serving children, families and their communities since 1948 when UPS founder Jim Casey and his siblings named the philanthropic group in honor of their mother. Casey’s widowed mother struggled to raise him and his siblings. Because of their belief that a children’s futures are shaped by what their families can provide, the Casey siblings created the Annie E. Casey Foundation to provide innovative, cost effective responses to the needs of children and their families. The Casey Foundation funds the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), which supports alternatives to incarceration for America's youth. PJI provides support to this work through the JDAI Help Desk.

The National Association of Counties (NACo) is the only county resource center in the nation. It represents all of the 3,066 counties in the U.S. and gives them a unified voice when approaching the federal government with issues. NACo also helps improve the public's understanding of county government, assists counties in finding and sharing innovative solutions through education and research, and provides value-added services to save counties and taxpayers money. In support of this mission, NACo’s Justice and Public Safety steering committee asks the Pretrial Justice Institute to be a panelist at their legislative conferences each year. This enables the Institute to educate county leaders about the importance of pretrial services in protecting communities from dangerous individuals, reducing the number of low-risk individuals held before trial and providing services for non-violent offenders as an alternative to trial. 

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC), part of the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, provides training, technical assistance, information services and policy/program development assistance to federal, state and local corrections agencies. As a part of its support of pretrial justice, NIC hosts a biannual Orientation for New Pretrial Executives, an extensive week-long training at which Pretrial Justice Institute staff members serve as faculty. NIC also supports the NIC Pretrial Network, a biannual meeting of top program directors from across the country; the Pretrial Justice Institute participates in this meeting. 

For more than 45 years, the National Judicial College has provided judicial education and professional development to judges from across the United States and other countries. The Pretrial Justice Institute has worked with the National Judicial College, pursuant to a Bureau of Justice Assistance grant, to take one of its trainings on the road. The Pretrial Justice Institute has also worked with the National Judicial College to provide three pilot sites with state-specific judicial training on pretrial release decision making. These trainings provide judicial officers with history, standards, case law, statutes and evidence-based results on effective pretrial release decision making.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is part of the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs. Its goals are to reduce and prevent crime, violence, and drug abuse, and also to improve the functioning of the criminal justice system. BJA emphasizes cooperation between federal, state, and local efforts. The Pretrial Justice Institute, with BJA funding, provides technical assistance in Native American tribal communities to help reduce unnecessary pretrial detention throughout their jails. As a part of the grant, the Pretrial Justice Institute also is developing a model tribal code relating to pretrial release decision making. The Pretrial Justice Institute has collaborated with The National Judicial College to provide localized judicial training on pretrial release decision making using BJA funding. At BJA's behest, we also wrote "Pretrial Diversion and the Law: A Sampling of Four Decades of Appellate Court Rulings." 

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is housed under the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs. BJS has gathered, analyzed, and published criminal justice statistics for more than 25 years. The Pretrial Justice Institute has worked with BJS for more than 10 years on the State Court Processing Statistics Project, formerly referred to as the National Pretrial Reporting Program, providing a snapshot of the criminal justice system and case processing - from arrest to adjudication and sentencing. The Pretrial Justice Institute has redesigned important data systems and continues to collect data and analyze it to improve our understanding of the impact of pretrial programs.

The National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) represents state, tribal and local governments on crime prevention and crime control issues. Its members represent all facets of the criminal and juvenile justice community, from law enforcement, corrections, prosecution, defense, courts, victim-witness services and educational institutions to federal, state and local elected officials.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice and is dedicated to researching crime control and justice issues. NIJ provides objective, independent, evidence-based knowledge and tools to meet the challenges of crime and justice, particularly at the State and local levels.  PJI works with NIJ to assure that pretrial justice topics are included in a national research agenda.  In 2008, NIJ released a solicitation for research grants specifically on pretrial issues.  Awards are pending.

The American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) is an international organization that focuses on probation, parole and community-based corrections, in both adult and juvenile sectors. It provides a unified voice for the field of community corrections. The Pretrial Justice Institute is partnering with APPA to work on the Prison Rape Elimination Act.