Highlights of Findings

Many new pretrial services programs have been initiated since the last survey in 1989; 44 percent of the programs participating in the current survey have been started since 1990. Probation is the administrative locus for a growing number of pretrial programs; 34 percent of programs started since 1990 are in probation, compared to 27 percent in jails, and 24 percent in courts. By contrast, 36 percent of programs started in the 1980s were in courts, whereas 27 percent were in probation and 16 percent in jails. The average staff size for a pretrial program is 18; 10 percent of programs have just 1 staff person, and 2 percent have more than 200.

The American Bar Association and the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies specify several core services or practices for pretrial services programs. Although many of these services and practices are present in a large percentage of programs, the survey results show that several other services and practices are not present in most programs. For example, despite the recommendation in the standards that all persons charged with a criminal offense be interviewed by pretrial services, only 16 percent of programs report having no exclusions on interviews. In addition, although the standards call for the use of objective criteria in the formulation of a risk assessment, fewer than 1 in 4 pretrial programs (23 percent) rely exclusively on objective risk assessment criteria; 42 percent combine objective and subjective criteria, and 35 percent use subjective criteria only.

The survey looked at how pretrial services programs prepare staff to do their jobs and measure their effectiveness. A majority of programs have a mission statement and operations manual to guide and instruct staff. Fewer than half the programs, though, provide a structured training program for new staff. One-quarter of the programs rely exclusively on on-the-job training.

As for efforts to measure effectiveness, 48 percent of pretrial programs report that they have never validated their risk assessment instrument; an additional 22 percent indicate that it has been more than 5 years since their instrument was validated. Forty-five percent of programs do not calculate failure to appear (FTA) rates; of those that do, there is great variation in how these rates are calculated:

• Seventy-one percent count only those released under the supervision of the program, 14 percent count all those interviewed by the program (regardless of release type), and 13 percent count only those interviewed by the program and placed on nonfinancial release.

• Sixty percent define an FTA as occurring only when a bench warrant is issued, whereas 35 percent define FTA as whenever any court appearance is missed, regardless of whether a warrant was issued.

• Sixty percent use a defendant-based measure to calculate FTA, and 32 percent use an appearance-based measure.

Seventy-one percent of programs do not calculate rearrest rates; of those that do, there is variation in how those rates are calculated:

• Eighty percent calculate rearrest rates only for those who are under the program's supervision, 10 percent count all those interviewed by the program regardless of release type, and 8 percent include only those interviewed by the program and placed on nonfinancial release.

• Ten percent define a rearrest as occurring only when the new charge results in a conviction, 80 percent consider a rearrest to be whenever there is a new arrest (regardless of the ultimate disposition of the new charge), and 10 percent qualify other miscellaneous circumstances as a rearrest.

It appears that pretrial services programs are beginning to address challenges brought on by two special populations of defendants whose presence in the criminal justice system has been growing—those who have a mental illness and those charged with domestic violence. Nearly 3 of every 4 pretrial programs ask about mental health status and treatment as a regular part of the interview. About one-quarter of the programs report having implemented special procedures to supervise defendants with a mental illness. The majority of these, 75 percent, refer the defendant to a mental health program in the community. Sixteen percent report having a specialized caseload. One-quarter of the programs have developed special risk assessment procedures for defendants charged with domestic violence offenses and about one-third have implemented special procedures to supervise defendants charged with domestic violence offenses.

The survey also examined the extent to which pretrial services programs have been making use of technology to aid in their work. Sixty-eight percent of pretrial programs report using drug testing as a tool in pretrial supervision. About half (104) of the programs report using alcohol testing as a supervision tool. Nearly 1 in 5 programs that test for alcohol use a remote system, whereby the defendant can be tested at home by a supervision officer at another location. Fifty-four percent of the pretrial programs use at least one form of electronic monitoring. Most pretrial programs that use electronic monitoring use continuously signaling devices, which sound an alert if the defendant leaves a restricted area. Six percent of the programs use Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, which allows the exact movements of defendants in the community to be tracked from a remote location on a continuous basis. Fewer than 10 percent of pretrial programs rely exclusively on a manual system to gather, store, and retrieve information. Just over half of the programs use a combination of manual and automated systems. More than half of the pretrial programs report that the information systems they use are not integrated with computers from other criminal justice programs in the jurisdiction.

Although pretrial services programs generally have little, if any, control over the population at the jail, the survey examined several characteristics of programs in relation to the jail population. Forty-four percent of the jails in jurisdictions served by the pretrial programs are over capacity. Almost half are under capacity, and the remainder are at capacity. Programs administratively located within the sheriff's department or jail and those that are independent agencies are the least likely by far to be in jurisdictions where the jail population is over capacity—29 percent for both, compared to 47 percent for probation-based programs, 50 percent for private, nonprofit programs, and 54 percent for court-based programs. Programs that assess risks of pretrial misconduct in an exclusively subjective manner are more than twice as likely to have a jail population that exceeds its capacity than those programs that assess risk exclusively through an objective risk assessment instrument—56 percent compared to 27 percent. Fifty-seven percent of programs that add subjective input to an objective instrument are in jurisdictions with overcrowded jails.