Data Collection and Outcome Measures

Policymakers, funders and advocates all increasingly expect programs to show demonstrable results. Pretrial services programs must make collecting data and reporting outcomes a priority in order to expand support for their programs.  As with the field of probation and community corrections, establishing outcome measures can be challenging given the variety of community types and governance structures.  Many pretrial services programs are concerned that if they provide program outcomes, the outcomes may be used against the program during trying times.  Only 58 percent of pretrial programs that participated in the 2008 survey (116 programs) publish an annual report of program information. 

Survey of Pretrial Programs Series:  Calculating Rearrest Rates and Failure to Appear (FTA) Rates

PJI has recently released the fourth national survey of pretrial services programs. Previous surveys were conducted in 1979, 1989, and 2001.

Listed below are the findings relating to calculating rearrest rates.

It is important that pretrial services programs track defendants who have been rearrested on new charges while the initial charge is still pending, because one goal of pretrial programs is to minimize instances of such rearrests. Only 37 percent of pretrial programs  calculate rearrest rates.

As with FTA rates, programs that calculate rearrest rates vary in the population for which they calculate those rates.  Eighty-nine percent of the programs that do calculate the rearrest rate do so only for defendants under the program’s supervision. Just three percent calculate the rate for all persons released, regardless of the release type, and seven percent do so only for those interviewed by the program who are released on non-financial conditions.

Listed below are the findings relating to calculating failure to appear (FTA) rates.

Because one of the goals of a pretrial services program is to minimize instances of FTA in court, it is crucial that programs be able to keep track of the number of defendants who do fail to appear. However, 32 percent of pretrial programs in 2008 report that they do not calculate FTA rates.  In comparison to the 2001 survey, 45 percent of the programs reported that they do not calculate FTA rates.  Although this is an improvement, more work needs to be done to close this gap. 

In addition, even those programs that do calculate FTA rates vary in the population for which they calculate those rates. By far, most programs that calculate FTA rates do so only for those defendants who are under the program’s supervision, (88 percent). Another 14 percent calculate the rates only for those placed on any kind of nonfinancial release. Only 12 percent calculate the rates for all those interviewed by the pretrial program, regardless of the release type.

Programs differ in how they calculate FTA rates. Fifty-six percent use an appearance-based measure, in which the total number of missed court appearances is divided by the total number of scheduled court appearances. Forty-two percent use a defendant-based measure, in which the number of defendants who miss at least one court appearance is divided by the number of defendants with scheduled court appearances.

This section contains the chapters of each set of standards related to this topic, examples submitted by programs, related publications and results from PJI’s Survey of Pretrial Programs series.