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Alternatives to Incarceration; Phase I: Pretrial Evaluation, Section 1: Executive Summary

NCJ Number
156996
Date Published
1993
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This study provides the first comprehensive evaluation of Connecticut's alternatives to incarceration.
Abstract
The first phase of the study involved an evaluation of pretrial alternatives to incarceration, comparing defendants in the community on conditional release with a comparison group that had no conditions as part of their release status. The second phase will evaluate programs for offenders who are sentenced to alternative to incarceration programs, and compare them to those sentenced to prison and intensive supervision. The findings from the first phase of the study demonstrated that defendants released into the community with conditions pose less risk in terms of new arrests and failures to appear than defendants who post bond without conditions. The data yielded predictors that could identify, with 98 percent accuracy, which pretrial defendants were least likely to be arrested on new charges or fail to appear in court. The results showed that defendants at high risk of failure to appear were those who committed personal crimes, while drug defendants were more likely to be arrested on new charges. The study focused on three main types of conditional release supervision: alternative incarceration centers, bail contracts, and bail supervision. 7 notes