Pretrial Services Research Articles

Presumption of Innocence and Public Safety: A Possible Dialogue

In Mexico, increasing demands for public safety coupled with the need for a more effective criminal justice system resulted in the security and justice constitutional reform of 2008. The outcome was a constitutional framework with provisions based on the highest standards of human rights on the one hand, and on the other, exceptional measures that restrict rights in an attempt to improve public safety. Unfortunately, the crime rate and incidence of unreported crime have changed little. When public safety is demanded, a clear, rational and concrete response is required. Limiting the alternatives to pre-trial detention or increasing penalties is rarely the appropriate response. This paper focuses on pre-trial detention and non-custodial measures supported by the new criminal justice system, how they relate to the principle of the presumption of innocence and the tension between this and the punitive demands for increased imprisonment. In addition, this study discusses a technical solution, found in pre-trial services, which seeks to balance the presumption of innocence and the right to personal liberty with public safety.

The Effect of Pretrial Detention on Sentencing in Two Federal Districts

While a substantial body of research indicates that legal variables, such as offense severity and criminal history, principally shape sentencing decisions, other studies demonstrate that extralegal factors such as race, gender, and age influence sentencing outcomes, as well. The handful of studies focusing upon the effect of pretrial detention/release on sentencing outcomes indicate that pretrial detention is associated with greater lengths of incarceration. This study—the first to empirically examine the sentencing consequences of pretrial detention in the United States federal courts—employed a sample of 1,723 cases from two district courts (New Jersey and Pennsylvania Eastern). Pretrial detention and, to a lesser degree, revocation of granted pretrial supervision were associated with increased prison sentences; on the other hand, successfully completing a term of pretrial services supervision was associated with shorter sentence length. Implications for the federal criminal justice system are discussed.

Effectiveness of a short-term mental health court: Criminal recidivism one year postexit.

This article investigated criminal recidivism 1 year postexit from a mental health court (MHC), which has, unlike prior MHCs studied, relatively short periods of court supervision. It benefits from a federal pretrial services agency that screens all arrestees for mental illness and dedicates a specialized supervision unit (SSU) to provide supervision and services while on pretrial release to all screened positive, including MHC participants. We compared criminal activity prior to key arrest with criminal activity post court disposition in MHC participants (N = 408) and MHC-eligible mentally ill arrestees in SSU (N = 687) receiving the same supervision and services while controlling for possible confounders. The proportion of MHC participants arrested was significantly lower in the year after MHC exit and significantly lower than that of the comparison group. They also averaged fewer rearrests and had a longer time to rearrest. MHC graduates made the greatest gains and accounted for the recidivism differences between MHC participants and the comparison group. This study adds to the accumulating evidence of the effectiveness of MHCs in reducing recidivism among offenders with severe mental illness.

Reducing courts' failure-to-appear rate by written reminders.

This article examines the effectiveness of using different kinds of written reminders to reduce misdemeanor defendants’ failure-to-appear (FTA) rates. A subset of defendants was surveyed after their scheduled court date to assess their perceptions of procedural justice and trust and confidence in the courts. Reminders reduced FTA overall, and more substantive remind ers (e.g., with information on the negative consequences of FTA) were more effective than a simple reminder. FTA varied depending on several offense and offender characteristics, such as geographic location (urban vs. rural), type of offense, and number of offenses. The reminders were somewhat more effective for Whites and Hispanics than for Blacks. Defendants with higher institutional confidence and those who felt they had been treated more fairly by the criminal justice system were more likely to appear, though the effectiveness of the reminder was greatest among misdemeanants with low levels of trust in the courts. The implications for public policy and pretrial services are discussed.

Interdistrict Variation in the Implementation of the Crack Retroactivity Policy by U.S. District Courts

In 2007, after years of dissatisfaction with the 100-to-1 disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, the U.S. Sentencing Commission amended the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, reducing by two levels the base offense level assigned to threshold quantities of crack cocaine. The amendment was subsequently made retroactive, which required the federal courts to process approximately 20,000 prisoner motions for sentence reduction. Using data collected from a case study of one particular district as well as a survey of representatives from the 94 federal judicial districts, this study examines the process of “crack retroactivity” implementation. The authors found that court communities varied greatly with respect to their organizational arrangements, procedures, and motivations. Although U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services played an important role in every district, how and why districts organized to respond to crack retroactivity varied. The study findings also indicate that sentencing procedures may be another mechanism through which location affects sentencing outcomes.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Diversion From Standard Prosecution

Over the past two decades, there has been a paradigm shift in how the criminal justice system handles specific types of offenders. The initial impetus for this shift was the long-overdue recognition that standard criminal justice processing was not resulting in meaningful reductions in drug use and criminal recidivism among drug-involved offenders. As a result, courts across the United States began developing specialized dockets designed to address the specific criminogenic risk factors of drug-involved offenders. The advent of drug treatment courts was the beginning of a new generation of specialty courts and other community-based efforts to deal with specific types of offenders. Although these efforts began with a focus on drug-involved offenders, community-based alternatives to standard prosecution were soon developed for other subsets of offenders, including those with mental health problems. Drug courts and mental health courts have received a good deal of attention, but specialty courts are only one type of community-based diversion program. Indeed, there are a range of community-based alternatives to standard prosecution that span the entire criminal justice continuum. In this regard, the Sequential Intercept Model developed by Munetz andGriffin (2006) provides a useful organizing framework. This model describes five points at which standard criminal justice processing can be interrupted (or intercepted) and individuals can be diverted from standard prosecution: (1) law enforcement and emergency services; (2) post-arrest: initial detention/hearing and pre-trial services; (3) post-initial hearings: jails/prisons, courts, forensic evaluations, and commitments; (4) re-entry from jails, prisons, and forensic hospitalization; and (5) community corrections and community support. Each of these intercepts provides an opportunity to intervene with offenders andpotentially break the costly and ineffective cycle of arrest, incarceration, release, and re-arrest that has often characterized the criminal justice system's response to certain types of offenders.This special issue presents the most up-to-date research on diversion from standard prosecution.

Facilitating Pretrial Justice in New Orleans

New Orleans in 2011 finds itself facing many of the same problems New York City faced in 1961 when the founders of the Vera Institute of Justice launched the Manhattan Bail Project: Too many people are held in pretrial detention who could be released without risk to public safety; the reliance on bail results in disparate outcomes based on financial ability; and the unnecessary detention of thousands of defendants each year imposes excessive costs on the city government and taxpayers, as well as on those needlessly detained. Vera is now working with New Orleans stakeholders to develop a comprehensive pretrial services system. Following in the footsteps of the Manhattan Bail Project, the work will create a carefully conceived and locally sensitive pretrial services system, one that will result in a fairer and more efficient criminal justice system and a safer community.

He Hits, She Hits

Within the study of intimate partner violence (IPV), controversy exists over whether perpetration and victimization of domestic violence is gender specific (gendered). Some researchers maintain no or few gender differences in IPV offending and victimization, particularly at less severe levels. Others argue that IPV is highly gendered and perpetrated largely by men against their female partners and expartners. Using officially collected data (through pretrial services and police reports) in a large Midwestern city, this study examined 2,670 IPV cases of which 14% had female defendants. This study was an effort to further clarify the debate regarding gender differences and similarities in reports of perpetration, victimization, context, and consequences of IPV. The two political and research perspectives that guide this debate, the family violence and feminist perspectives, are also discussed.

Utilization of counseling and supportive services by female victims of domestic abuse.

Increasing attention to the high prevalence of domestic violence (DV) and its impact on women's physical and mental health has resulted in expanded services for abused women. Abused women appear to underutilize the formal counseling services available in many communities, however, and further research is needed to identify factors related to service utilization. In the present study, 1,746 women assaulted by a male intimate partner were identified from a larger pool of women interviewed by Pretrial Services following the arrest of their spouse/partner on domestic abuse charges. The women were selected for the current study if they reported prior physical assaults perpetrated by the same spouse/partner listed in the instant offense. In addition to describing previous physical assaults and psychological abuse by their current spouse/partner, women were also asked whether they had ever sought "formal counseling/supportive services" to address the abuse. Consistent with the prior literature, only a minority of the victims reported prior use of these services (14.9%). Additional analyses indicated that the likelihood of having accessed services varied as a function of victim demographic factors (race, relationship to the offender, income), characteristics of the prior DV (prior injury by partner, forced sexual activity, prior psychological abuse), and whether the victim's children witnessed the fighting. Limitations of the study and implications for service providers and the courts are discussed.

Book Review: Pre-trial Services and the Future of Probation

Book Review: Pre-trial Services and the Future of Probation

The Columbine High School Massacre and criminal justice system response: an exploratory case study

Framed in the situational criminological perspective, this case study examines the effect of the Columbine High School Massacre on a pretrial services unit. The massacre decreased intakes into the jail, increased the proportion of persons detained for violent crimes, and made bond commissioners less willing to facilitate the release of persons arrested for violent crimes. Pretrial release rates for domestic and other violence-related cases were not affected. Implications for situational criminological theory and criminal justice system policy are discussed.

Pre-Trial Services and the Future of Probation, by m. Drakeford, K. Haines, B. Cotton and M. Octigan (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001. 195 pp. pound12.99 pb)

Pre-Trial Services and the Future of Probation, by m. Drakeford, K. Haines, B. Cotton and M. Octigan (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001. 195 pp. pound12.99 pb)

Effects of state organizational structure and forensic examiner training on pretrial competence assessments.

States differ widely in their delivery of pretrial forensic evaluation services, in terms of organizational structure and training requirements of forensic examiners. It was hypothesized that defendants adjudicated incompetent to proceed in states using community-based, private-practitioner systems would show less impairment on a competence assessment measure, the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA), than defendants adjudicated incompetent in states using traditional, inpatient systems. It also was hypothesized that mean MacCAT-CA scores for incompetent defendants from states requiring forensic training/certification would be lower than for defendants from states lacking such requirements. Results indicated significant differences across the four types of service delivery systems examined. However, planned comparisons revealed no differences between a state using a traditional, inpatient model and a state employing a community-based, private-practitioner model. Analyses examining the effects of mandatory forensic training failed to support the hypothesis that training requirements result in the adoption of higher thresholds for determining incompetence.

Image Theory's Compatibility Test and Evaluations of the Status Quo

The research on image theory's concept of progress decisions about either (1) the acceptability of the status quovisa desired state or (2) the acceptability of movement toward a desired state has been limited to the laboratory. To demonstrate the feasibility of research on nonlaboratory, job-related progress decisions and to develop methods for doing it with minimal intrusion on participant work time, two experiments examined evaluations of the status quovisa desired state in the context of three organizations: a controller's office, a pretrial services office, and a chain of fast food restaurants.Experiment 1 used fairly elaborate, time consuming methods in the controller's office and pretrial services office to measure the compatibility between participants' images of desirable supervision and their images of current supervision as well as their satisfaction with both supervision and with the organization. In both cases, as compatibility decreased, satisfaction decreased, but satisfaction with the organization appeared to derive from satisfaction with supervision rather than directly from compatibility.Experiment 2 measured the same concepts in the fast food chain using simple, single-item methods, obtaining roughly the same results as Experiment 1, except that it also demonstrated that hope for change can mitigate the effects of incompatibility on satisfaction. These results provide evidence for the role of compatibility in decision making and for the feasibility of using simple methods of measuring compatibility, acceptability, and hope in nonlaboratory research.

On the ubiquity of drug selling among youthful offenders in Washington, D.C., 1985–1991: Age, period, or cohort effect?

We present a multiple-cohort analysis of rates of participation in drug offenses versus other crime in an urban sample, based on official charge data on young adults from the Pretrial Services Agency in the District of Columbia for the years 1985 to 1991. We make lower-bound estimates of how many individuals from particular population groups residing in the District are involved in drug-related criminal activities, examine trends in drug and nondrug charges in Washington, D.C., and disentangle the age, cohort, and period effects in the variation in participation in drug offenses across multiple birth cohorts in the city. We estimate that up to 30% of the young, black male populationof the District of Columbia were charged with drug distribution during this time. Charge rates for drug distribution activities appear to peak around age 24, decreasing slowly thereafter. Large and nonlinear period effects were observed for all drug-related charge rates, while increasing linear period effects were found for nondrug misdemeanors. Cohort effects in drug-related charge rates were also observed. Levels of participation in drug distribution charge rates were lower for older cohorts, while the cohort share with a drug possession charge declined for younger cohorts. However, when age and period effects are included in the models, these cohort effects are muted or disappear, except in the case of nondrug misdemeanors.

Nonprofit Organizations and Democratic Accountability in Implementing Supervised Pretrial Release Programs

This article explores some of the implications of the use of private organizations to deliver supervised pretrial release services in England and the United States. The impact of the use of private organizations depends both on the division of responsibility between the state agencies and the nonprofit organizations and on the policies of the particular nonprofit involved in a specific case. The most potentially problematic alliances occur when the private organization has responsibility for both provision and production of services, but some programs that utilize this division of labor are among the most innovative, helping to maintain a system that returns as many pretrial defendants to the community as can be accomplished without compromising safety. Case studies of programs developed by the Vera Institute in the United States and the Rainer Foundation in England are examined.

The organization of pretrial forensic evaluation services: A national profile.

A survey obtained standardized data to provide a description of the approaches used in the 50 states and the District of Columbia for obtaining court-ordered competence to stand trial and crimial responsibility evaluations. Respondents were forensic mental health administrators and forensic mental health professionals. Data were obtained for variables describing the organizational characteristics of the states' pretrial forensic evaluation systems. A typology of the states' systems was developed, based on their predominant reliance on inpatient versus outpatient approaches and on service providers with court referral catchment areas that were statewide, regional, or local. Five types allowed classification of 43 states. The types are described on the major organizational and functional variables employed in the survey. The traditional practice of obtaining most court-ordered evaluations from a central inpatient facility has been replaced by a number of outpatient models in all but a minority of states. These models are more complex than past descriptions would suggest.

Recommending Juvenile Offenders for Pretrial Release

Courthistories of 501 juvenile offenders prosecuted in adult court were followed as part of an effort to develop a point scale recommendation system for a large pretrial services agency. The point scale and two variations used criteria that predicted a warrant (failure to appear for one or more scheduled appearances) more accurately than when other traditional criteria used for adults were applied to this population. The juvenile offenders, although facing trial on charges of high severity, had lower warrant and recidivism rates during court processing than comparable samples of 16-year-old adult defendants. Implications are discussed for the efficacy of prosecuting juveniles in the adult system and the feasibility of separate pretrial recommendation systems to enable a higher proportion of reliable defendants to secure release pending trial.

Correspondence between District Judges

I read with interest your comments in the March/April issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter. As chairperson of the Probation and Pretrial Services Com mittee of our district court, I have been following proposed amendments to the guidelines and reporting to the judges on them periodically. I assume the suggested amendments as discussed in your March 5, 1991 statement are the same amendments as proposed in the 1990 Annual Report of the Judicial Conference to the Sentencing Commission. If there are changes I would appreciate someone letting me know. I have a question, how successful were you in your recommendations to the Com mission? I have not had an opportunity to cross-check the amendments suggested by you with the Substantive and Clarifying Amendments now before the Congress. Thank you in advance, I am, Yours truly, Avern Cohn

Evaluating Criminal Justice Training Addressing AIDS Policy

The AIDS Policy, Training, and Technical Assistance Project was designed to assist state and local criminal justice agencies to develop and implement human immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV)-related policies for both clients and employees of the organization. The target populations for the project were policymakers and managers from law enforcement, corrections, probation and parole, victim assistance, pretrial services, and drug and alcohol treatment services. A model 3-day HIV policy training curriculum, AIDS: From Policy to Practice, was pilot tested through a series of six national workshops for senior level administrators representing the target populations. A 6-month follow-up of the participants indicated significant changes in knowledge and attitudes about HIV policies and more important, policymakers had actually written/revised/implemented HIV-related policies as a result of the training program.