Topics in Community Corrections, Annual Issue 2008: Applying Evidence-Based Practices in Pretrial Services Issue contents are: “Foreword” by Ken Rose; “A Framework for Implementing Evidence-Based Practices in Pretrial Services” by John Clark; “Advancing Evidence-Based Practices in the Pretrial Field” by Katie Green, Pat Smith, and Kristina Bryant; “Improving Pretrial Assessment and Supervision in Colorado” by Michael R. Jones and Sue Ferrere; “Pretrial Defendants: Are They Getting Too Much of a Good Thing?” by Barbara M. Hankey; “Charge Specialty and Revictimization of Defendants Charged with Domestic Violence Offenses” by Spurgeon Kennedy; and “Pretrial Rearrests Among Domestic Violence Defendants in New York City” by Richard R. Peterson.

PJI Fact Sheet: Understanding the Findings from the Bureau of Justice Statistics Report, “Pretrial Release of Felony Defendants in State Court - January 2008

Examining the Efficacy of Pretrial Release Conditions, Sanctions and Screening with the State Court Processing Statistics Dataseries David Levin November 2007

The Role of Traditional Pretrial Diversion inthe Age of Specialty Treatment Courts:

Expanding the Range of Problem-Solving Options at the Pretrial Stage

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Pretrial Diversion and the Law: A Sampling of Four Decades of Appellate Court Rulings

This monograph summarizes approximately 80 state and federal appellate court rulings handed down over the past four decades in 21 different states plus the federal system.  The document follows the diversion process, beginning with the legal issues that have arisen regarding eligibility determination and admission, then moves on to enrollment in the diversion program, the terms that are made part of the diversion agreement, dismissal of charges upon successful completion of diversion, dealing with non-compliance with diversion terms, and the use of diversion information outside of the diversion setting.

Solving the Riddle of the Indigent Defendant in the Bail System This article describes why the money bail system has never worked, and never will work, and re-visits a framework for a rational and effective pretrial release decision making process.

Reprinted with permission from:
Trial Briefs (October 2007) Poverty Law
The North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers
www.ncatl.org

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This report presents the findings from the third survey of pretrial services programs, conducted in 2001, in which a total of 202 pretrial services programs participated. The results describe where pretrial services programs stand in relation to one another, where they stand in relation to where they were in 1979 and 1989, and where they stand in relation to the standards set by the American Bar Association and the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies for services provided by pretrial programs.

Written by PSRC staff in conjunction with several other organizations, and under the coordination of the Council of State Governments, this document provides policy statements and recommendations for improving the handling of persons with mental illness in the criminal justice system. The document presents intervention that can take place at numerous stages along a continuum, from initial contact by a police officer with a person with mental illness to the final completion of a sentence. A section on the courts addresses issues related to pretrial release and diversion, as well as adjudication and sentencing.

This document describes innovative approaches used by jurisdictions to alleviate jail crowding. It describes how several actors in the criminal justice system including judges, prosecutors, defense, pretrial services, probation, and jailers, can work together to address jail crowding.

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In the past decade, most states have passed laws making it easier to prosecute juveniles in criminal court. This shift in policy has come at a time of growing awareness of and concern about disproportionate representation of minorities in both the adult and juvenile justice systems. This report presents the results of an analysis of all cases where a juvenile was prosecuted in criminal court in the first six months of 1998 in 18 counties. That analysis found that minority youth, particularly African-Americans, were over represented and received disparate treatment at several stages of the process.

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Pretrial program administrators often assess the effectiveness of their programs, if they do so at all, only by using system wide factors, such as failure to appear, rearrest, or pretrial detention rates. The purpose of this document is to provide pretrial program administrators with more agency specific tools to measure effectiveness. This document presents a self-administered assessment instrument that lists the key practices of pretrial programs, describing how each can be optimized.

This document, presented in a question and answer format, addresses issues related to supervised pretrial release. It describes the different kinds of supervised release, how pretrial programs should provide supervision services, and how they should respond to violations of pretrial release conditions.

This document is designed to assist administrators in starting a new pretrial services program or making enhancements to an existing program. It reviews the current challenges facing pretrial program administrators and provides examples of how other pretrial programs have addressed those issues. Examples of interview and risk assessment forms used by other programs appear in the appendix.

This document discusses the evolution of drug testing in the criminal justice system, describes the latest developments in drug testing technologies and costs, and reviews current applications of drug testing by both federal and local pretrial programs.

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This manual is designed to help in training pretrial services staff on basic program functions and responsibilities and is intended to supplement existing agency instruction. The manual discusses the history of bail reform and provides an overview of pretrial services agencies, interviewing, risk assessment, pretrial supervision, and confidentiality of pretrial services agency information. It also includes a suggested bibliography for pretrial training.

A discussion of "three-strikes" laws enacted in Washington and California and their impact, provisions of strike laws newly enacted in 24 states, and a comparison of the 24 new laws to preexisting repeat offender sentencing provisions. Early evidence shows that, with the exception of California, most of the laws will have a minimal impact on prison populations because they were drafted to apply to only the most violent repeat offenders.

This document explores why the goals of the bail reform movement, maximizing pretrial release while minimizing pretrial misconduct, have not been realized fully. It compares current pretrial practices to benchmarks established by the pretrial release standards of various professional associations and state and federal statutes, and discusses current and emerging challenges facing the pretrial release process.

This monograph analyzes arguments favoring commercial surety bail, including arguments that surety bail better protects public safety from national and local perspectives on pretrial release and detention. The analysis includes state and federal case law and statutes on bail, media reports, and research on pretrial release. Also highlighted are the position on pretrial release and detention of organizations such as the American Bar Association, the National District Attorneys Association, and the U.S Department of Justice's Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards.