Monitoring and Supervision

The American Bar Association Pretrial Release Standards call for pretrial services programs to develop and provide appropriate and effective methods for supervision for all who are assigned supervision as a condition of release pending adjudication.  Similarly the NAPSA standards require pretrial programs to monitor compliance with conditions of release. 

Survey of Pretrial Programs Series: Monitoring and Supervision

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 the monitoring and supervision of defendants on pretrial release.

Supervised Pretrial Release

The ABA standards state that pretrial services programs should “develop and provide appropriate and effective supervision for all persons released pending adjudication who are assigned supervision as a condition of release” (Standard 10-1.10(c)). Likewise, the NAPSA standards state that pretrial programs should monitor compliance with conditions of release (Standard 3.5(a)).

An overwhelming majority of pretrial programs (97 percent) in the 2008 survey report that supervision services are provided, either through the pretrial program or some other program in the jurisdiction, compared to 93 percent in the 2001 survey and 81 percent in 1989.

The ABA standards state that pretrial programs should develop a range of release options that are “sufficient to respond to the risks and problems associated with released defendants in coordination with existing court, corrections and community resources”(Standard 10- 1.10(d)).

The most common supervision options available are having the defendant report in by telephone or in person (93 percent), drug testing (93 percent), alcohol testing (92 percent), referring the defendant to substance abuse treatment (89 percent) or mental health services (85 percent) and home confinement monitored through the use of electronic monitoring (64 percent).

The NAPSA standards call on pretrial services programs to provide “cross-jurisdictional supervision” of defendants who reside in the program’s jurisdiction but who may have been arrested in another jurisdiction (Standard 3.5(d)).  Nearly eight-out-of-ten pretrial programs express a willingness to provide this supervision.

Court Date Reminders

Both the ABA (Standard 10-1.10(k)) and NAPSA (Standard X.A.5) make it clear that it is the responsibility of pretrial services programs to remind defendants of their court dates. Programs employ multiple ways to do this, including reviewing the next court date during regular supervision contacts and contacting the defendant just prior to the date by telephone or mail.  Eleven percent of the programs lack any procedures to remind defendants of court dates.  The most common procedure for reminding defendants is during supervision contacts (82 percent).  Fifty-six percent remind defendants after their first appearance in court.  Fifty-two percent either call and send a reminder letter to the defendant.

Follow-up on Defendants Who Fail To Appear in Court

According to the NAPSA standards, pretrial services programs are responsible to “facilitate the return of defendants who fail to appear for their scheduled court dates” (Standard 3.5 (a, vii)). This assistance ranges from providing information to law enforcement trying to execute a bench warrant to locating and persuading the defendant to return to court voluntarily.

More than 80 percent of pretrial programs in the 2008 survey take some action to follow up on defendants who fail to appear in court. Comparing data from the four survey periods yielded the following results:  In 1979, 56 percent of programs reported that they sent a letter to the defendant urging return, 80 percent called the defendant, and 45 percent made home visits. In 1989, 43 percent sent a letter to the defendant, 64 percent called, and 17 percent made a home visit. In 2001, 25 percent sent a letter, 52 percent called, and 12 percent made home visits. In 2008, 33 percent sent a letter, 62 percent called, and 10 percent made home visits. 

This section contains the specific chapters of each set of standards related to this topic, documents submitted by programs as examples, related publications, and results from our Survey of Pretrial Programs series.