History of Pretrial Services Programs

The establishment of the Vera Institute of Justice in 1961 marks the beginning of pretrial service programs.  Its goal was to set out and identify the biggest social problems in New York City.  Two findings resulted from their research.  First, many people accused of committing crimes remained in pretrial custody only because they couldn’t pay a nominal bail.  Second, they found that if you were released on pretrial release and had strong ties to the community, it was very likely that you would appear for your court proceedings. 

The Vera Institute created the Manhattan Bail Project which was the 1st pretrial screening program in the country.  The Manhattan Bail Project’s purpose was to assist judges in making informed release decisions which were more consistent and less reliant on release through financial means.  The factors that were taken into consideration in the release recommendation were:  the defendant’s ties to the area, employment status, education, and prior criminal record.  Information was gathered through interviews with defendants and that information was then verified by calling references provided by the defendant.

At his first press conference as Attorney General, Robert Kennedy announced he was forming a committee to explore the treatment of the poor in federal courts.  In early 1963, headed by Professor Francis Allen of the University of Chicago Law School, the committee issued a report highlighting that only those with sufficient financial means achieved justice at any stage of the system.  In particular, the report focused on the problem of bail and the detainment of the potentially innocent prior to trial.  In 1964, Attorney General Kennedy convened the first National Conference on Bail and Criminal Justice.  

By 1965, 56 jurisdictions reported operational bail projects. Two statewide projects in Connecticut and New Jersey were also underway.
 
In 1968, the change from the Manhattan Bail Project to Pretrial Services programs started with D.C. Bail Agency.  The D.C. Bail Agency expanded and assumed much greater responsibility in seeing that bail practices mandated, were carried out.  In addition to interviewing, collecting background information, verifying information, producing reports and recommendations to the court, the Pretrial Services programs would now also supervise defendants on various release conditions.  The determination of what conditions to impose is a major part of the expansion of the agency.

As a result of this greater complexity, pretrial release programs have assumed a larger role in jurisdictions, evolving to comprehensive programs charged with monitoring the entire system of release.  Pretrial services programs are the gatekeepers for other alternative placements and are the first criminal justice system players to assess and identify the needs of a defendant.  Pretrial programs gather and verify information about the accused (criminal history, status in criminal justice system, address, employment, and drug or alcohol use), as well as assess their likelihood for failure to appear at court proceedings or rearrest while on release.  Pretrial service programs present the judge with this information, allowing him or her to use it in determining appropriate pretrial release/detention and conditions.  Once the judge reaches his decision, the pretrial programs then function as the supervisors of the defendants on pretrial release and notify the courts upon any violation of release conditions.  1968 also marked the American Bar Association (ABA) (www.abanet.org) publishing of the 1st set of standards regarding pretrial release decisions.

In 1973, National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies (NAPSA) was incorporated in D.C. (www.napsa.org) and 1977 marks the inception of the Pretrial Services Resource Center (PSRC), a clearing house for pretrial services information.  These two organizations each had a grant from the Department of Justice in 1978.  The NAPSA grant was to develop national professional standards for the pretrial programs and PSRC was given a grant to evaluate the current status of the pretrial field at that time.

The National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies released its ‘Performance Standards and Goals for Pretrial Release’ in 1978.  Then in 1979 the 1st survey of Pretrial Services programs was released by PSRC.  The results of which proved important to serve as benchmarks for new, as well as existing programs to reach.  In 1989, PSRC released its 2nd survey of pretrial programs and in 2001 its 3rd survey (publication on website) to look comparatively at the 1979 study.

In the latest survey (2001) PSRC found some of the following characteristics of Pretrial Services Programs as of 2001.  The survey found that 88% of programs served a single local government entity while 10% serve more than one county and 2% (4 programs serve the entire state).  About 46 % of programs serve populations totaling between 100,000 and 500,000. 

Almost half of the pretrial programs categorize the area served by their programs as a mixture of urban, suburban and rural communities, with 21% of the programs categorizing their jurisdiction as primarily rural. 

Pretrial Services programs are found as either parts of a jail, courts, probation departments or independent or private agencies.  Pretrial programs have different staff sizes and hours based on their budgets.  It is not uncommon to have these programs all different sizes, from the very small (2-4) person staff to the very large (50-100). 

Pretrial programs are not uniform in their approach or activity.  For different jurisdictions, their focus and scope may vary.  Also their physical location within the criminal justice system (probation departments, jails, independent agencies) impacts the direction the agencies take.  Some are concerned about reducing jail crowding, while others primarily focus on the supervision of those who are released.  Many programs only interview target populations whom they think they can help, while other programs interview everyone who is arrested and walks through the door. 

This survey discovered that since the survey in 1989, there has been growth in the number of pretrial programs serving smaller jurisdictions as well as a growth in the programs housed in probation departments and jails along with a decline in those programs in the courts.  As technology increases, pretrial programs are able to offer more conditions of release that are even less restrictive than those before including on site drug testing and electronic monitoring. 

The 2001 survey had identified 88 new pretrial services programs since 1990, which is by far the biggest growth in pretrial programs since the programs were introduced in the 1960s.

Currently there are several hundred Pretrial Services Programs throughout the United States