U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

National Institute of Justice

I s s u e s a n d P r a c t i c e s

Pretrial Services Programs:

Responsibilities and Potential
U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

810 Seventh Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20531

John Ashcroft

Attorney General

Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice

World Wide Web Site World Wide Web Site 

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij
Pretrial Services Programs:

Responsibilities and Potential

by

Barry Mahoney

Bruce D. Beaudin

John A. Carver III

Daniel B. Ryan

Richard B. Hoffman

March 2001

NCJ 181939

Issues and Practices in Criminal Justice is a publication series of the National Institute of Justice.

Each report presents the program options and management issues in a topic area, based on a

review of research and evaluation findings, operational experience, and expert opinion on the

subject. The intent is to provide information to make informed choices in planning, implementing,

and improving programs and practices in criminal justice.
National Institute of Justice

Carolyn Peake

Program Monitor

Advisory Board

Legrome Davis

Supervising Judge, Criminal 

Division

Philadelphia Court of Common 

Pleas

1201 Criminal Justice Center

1301 Filbert Street

Philadelphia, PA 19107

Bennie H. Frazier

Chief, U.S. Pretrial Services

Office for the Southern District

of Florida (Retired)

1595 N.E. 135th Street

Miami, FL 33161

John S. Goldkamp

Professor, Department of 

Criminal Justice

520 North Columbus Boulevard

Suite 600

Temple University

Philadelphia, PA 19123

D. Alan Henry

Director, Pretrial Services 

Resource Center

1325 G Street N.W., Suite 770

Washington, DC 20005

Robert Wessels

Court Administrator

Harris County Criminal Courts 

at Law

301 San Jacinto, Room 401

Houston, TX 77002

Melinda Wheeler

Assistant General Manager

Kentucky Pretrial Services

100 Millcreek Park

Frankfort, KY 40601

The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the

Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

Prepared for the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, by Abt Associates Inc., under contract 

# OJP–94–C–007. Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the authors and do not 

necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Foreword

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

iii

Pretrial services programs can be valuable resources for

making significant improvements in the criminal justice

system because they are used in the early stages of the

criminal case process. Unnecessary detention before trial

not only results in unnecessary jail costs, it also deprives

defendants of their liberty. From a policy perspective,

decisions about detaining or releasing defendants should

balance the benefits of release and the risk of flight or

threat to public safety. 

Money bail remains a common mechanism for releasing

or detaining arrestees. But bail limits the decision to

release defendants to one primary factor: a defendant’s

ability to raise money. Pretrial services programs offer

the court alternatives by improving the breadth and quality of information about defendants—including their

housing and employment situation, relationships with

family, and other ties to the community—and by providing services to address identified needs. All 94 districts

in the Federal court system and more than 300 localities

now operate pretrial services programs, which use a variety

of mechanisms, including bail, to help the court decide

whether to release or detain defendants pending further

legal proceedings.

This report provides a review of issues and practices in the

pretrial services field. It describes how pretrial programs

operate, discusses key policy issues, and outlines issues

and challenges for the future. It pays particular attention to

how pretrial services programs obtain and convey information relevant to the pretrial release/detention decision.

It also describes how pretrial services agencies, the court,

and other criminal justice system agencies can work

together to minimize the risks of nonappearance and 

pretrial crime.

This report encourages policymakers and practitioners to

examine front-end decisionmaking practices and consider

the roles pretrial services programs can play in making

criminal justice processes more effective while enhancing

public safety.
Preface

This document reflects contributions made by a great

many individuals. The report addresses both policy issues

and operational practices, and in preparing it we have

gained knowledge, insight, and ideas from a broad range

of policymakers, practitioners, and researchers.

A number of practitioners from jurisdictions across the

United States patiently answered our questions and sent

materials describing their programs. In particular, we

gratefully acknowledge help received from Susan W.

Shaffer, Director, and Janice Bergin and Laura DeVol,

District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency; Robin

Rooks, Director, Pretrial Services Agency, and Theresa

Westerfield, Court Administrator, Sixteenth Judicial

Circuit of Florida; Joseph A. Cairone, Court

Administrator, Criminal Trial Division, First Judicial

District, (Philadelphia) Pennsylvania; Perry Mitchell,

Administrator, Maricopa County (Arizona) Pretrial

Services Agency; John Hendricks and Melinda Wheeler,

Kentucky Pretrial Services; Kim Holloway, Director,

Pima County (Arizona) Pretrial Services; Laura

Lilienfeld, Supervisor, Pretrial Services Assessment

Section, Montgomery County (Maryland) Department of

Correction and Rehabilitation; Lance Forsythe, Director,

Southside Community Corrections and Pretrial Services,

Emporia, Virginia; Carol Oeller, Director, Harris County

(Texas) Pretrial Services Agency; Robert Schwab,

Assistant Administrator, San Mateo (California) Bar

Association; and Susan Bookman, Director, Berkeley

(California) Own Recognizance Project.

Advisory board members Legrome Davis, Bennie H.

Frazier, John S. Goldkamp, D. Alan Henry, Robert

Wessels, and Melinda Wheeler offered very useful suggestions during two meetings, one in Washington, D.C.,

and another in Philadelphia. They also provided helpful

comments on drafts of this report.

Carolyn Peake, Program Monitor at the National Institute

of Justice (NIJ), took an active interest in the project. She

provided a number of useful suggestions about topics to

be covered and valuable input on drafts. Cheryl Crawford

and Marilyn Moses, Contracting Officer’s Technical

Representatives at NIJ, offered encouragement and helpful

suggestions. Two unidentified reviewers selected by NIJ

also contributed valuable comments and suggestions, and

Barbara Brown and Toni Little at the Justice Management

Institute (JMI) furnished excellent administrative support

throughout report preparation. 

Peter Finn of Abt Associates, Inc., provided fine editing

and valuable guidance on scope, organization, and content. Karen Swetlow of the National Criminal Justice

Reference Service was enormously helpful during the

final editing stages.

In preparing the final draft, we considered the comments

and suggestions of all individuals who reviewed an earlier

draft. In many instances, we made significant revisions

based on reviewers’ thoughtful comments, and the final

version is undoubtedly a better product because of their

input. We have not, however, incorporated all of the suggestions received. In some instances, different reviewers

adopted very different (sometimes diametrically opposing)

positions with respect to report content and the emphasis

to be given to particular topics. Choices between different perspectives had to be made, and we have done our

best to make these choices in a reasonable fashion.

This report addresses both policy and operational issues.

It is not intended to be a “how to” manual, although there

is certainly much—particularly in chapters 2 and 3—that

should be valuable for pretrial practitioners concerning

the practical techniques of information gathering, verification, risk analysis, and monitoring and supervision of

released defendants. Additionally, chapter 6 offers considerable information on the resources available to help

practitioners deal with operational problems. 

We have placed strong emphasis on discussing policy

issues—and on providing information about the roots 

of pretrial services in the bail reform movement of the

1960s and 1970s—for two main reasons. First, the policy

issues—particularly those related to information systems,

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

v
the commercial surety bail system, and the appropriate

scope for exercise of judicial discretion—are of great

importance not only to the future of pretrial services programs but also to the future of criminal justice in this

country. Second, we believe that practitioners concerned

about operational issues are likely to do a better job of

addressing those issues—and will have greater realization

of the consequences of alternative approaches to particular operational problems—if they understand the history,

constitutional framework, and policy context within

which operational issues arise. 

In our view, the concepts of fundamental fairness and

equal justice under law are at the heart of the American

justice system. The traditional commercial surety bail

system—which makes release of an arrested person

dependent on the individual’s ability to post a money

bond—runs directly contrary to these concepts. Welldesigned and well-managed pretrial services programs

have the potential to help justice systems function more

fairly and more effectively for all citizens.

Pretrial services programs were developed initially, in the

1960s and 1970s, to make our justice system more fair

and to reduce the extent to which persons were held in

detention solely because they could not afford to post

bail. As the volume of arrests grew in the 1980s and jail

overcrowding became an increasingly serious issue in

many communities, criminal justice policymakers began

to recognize that pretrial services programs could help

alleviate the crowded conditions and—with appropriate

supervision techniques—help minimize the risks of pretrial crime. But the fact that many recently established

programs have been developed in response to jail crowding—and are appropriately focused on helping to identify

those in detention who may be safely released from custody before trial—should not obscure the basic issues of

fairness that lie at the heart of pretrial decisionmaking.

The techniques used by well-functioning pretrial services

programs—including information gathering, risk assessment, and supervision of released defendants applying a

broad array of methods—have been developed to help

make pretrial decisionmaking more fair and even-handed,

to alleviate jail crowding, and to provide a greater measure

of public safety. 

We would have preferred to have included all of the

issues that appropriately might be addressed in a report

on pretrial services and to have covered the issues that

are included in greater depth. In some sections, we refer

readers to other sources for indepth coverage of particular topics, but for many topics, relevant recent research

and available literature are scarce. Chapter 5 includes a

discussion of topics where further research or other work

would be valuable, drawing heavily on suggestions made

by reviewers.

The authors assume full responsibility for presentation 

of the information and ideas in this report. While we 

are enormously grateful for the contributions of all who

helped, those individuals are in no way responsible for

errors of omission or commission in report preparation.

That responsibility lies with us.

Barry Mahoney

Denver, Colorado

Bruce D. Beaudin

Marlboro, Vermont

John A. Carver III

Washington, D.C.

Daniel B. Ryan

Sag Harbor, New York

Richard B. Hoffman

Washington, D.C.

P REFACE

vi
Table of Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 1: Pretrial Services: An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

What Do Pretrial Services Programs Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Impact on the community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Impact on the accused . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Equal justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Need for This Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Background: Why and How Pretrial Services Programs Have Been Implemented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

The Context in Which Pretrial Services Programs Operate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Law enforcement personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Prosecutor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Defense attorney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Judicial officers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Pretrial services staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Bail bondsmen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 

Organizational Structures for Pretrial Services Programs—Five Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Kentucky: A statewide pretrial services agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency: Merging State and Federal procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Monroe County, Florida: Pretrial services in a rural environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Maricopa County, Arizona: Pretrial services for a high-growth area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Improving pretrial release practices through a

guidelines approach and the use of new technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Methodology and Organization of This Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

vii
T ABLE OF C ONTENTS

viii

Chapter 2: Techniques Pretrial Services Agencies Use to Inform the

Release/Detention Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Information Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Conducting Defendant Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Timing of the interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Who should be interviewed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Location of the interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Interview formats and protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Obtaining Information From Other Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Analyzing the Information: Approaches to Risk Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Providing Information and Recommendations to the Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Chapter 3: Pretrial Supervision Strategies: Risk Management

for Released Defendants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Managing the Risk of Nonappearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Information: The foundation for managing risk of flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Monitoring and reminder strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Followup on no-shows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Managing Risks to Public Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Monitoring conditions of release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Direct supervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Responding to violation of release conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Supervision of Defendants With Special Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

How can program staff learn about the existence of special needs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

How should program staff use information about defendants’ substance abuse and 

mental health needs in making risk assessments and presenting information or recommendations 

to the court? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

What types of resources can be used to meet the special needs of released defendants? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

What role should program staff play in monitoring and supervising special needs defendants who 

are released conditionally? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Interjurisdictional and “Courtesy” Supervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
ix

Chapter 4: Sharing Pretrial Services Information for Use

Beyond the Release/Detention Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Sharing Information With Other Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Sharing information with law enforcement agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Sharing information with jail officials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Sharing information for sentencing purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Sharing information for use in differentiated case management and in conducting special dockets . . . . . . . . 51

Sharing information with diversion programs and social service providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Sharing information with researchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Limitations on Information Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

The Role of Pretrial Services in Integrated Justice Information Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Chapter 5: Looking Toward the Future: Key Issues for 

Policymakers and Practitioners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Juvenile Defendants in Adult Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Use of New Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Delegated Release Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

The Role of Commercial Surety Bail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Costs to taxpayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

FTA rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

Pretrial crime rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Scope of program responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Equal justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Judicial Discretion and the Effective Management of Release/Detention Decisionmaking . . . . . . . . . . 65

Research Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Demonstration Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Education and Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Chapter 6: Where to Get Additional Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

National Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

National Nonprofit Organizations That Provide Training and Technical Assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Potential Federal Funding Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

National and State Associations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Local and State Pretrial Services Programs and Practitioners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Literature in the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL
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Appendix A Kentucky Pretrial Services Agency—Forms, Instructions, and Court Rule . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Appendix B District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency—Interview Forms, Reports to the Court,

and Summary of Community Supervision and Drug Treatment Programs . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Appendix C Harris County (Houston), Texas, Pretrial Services Agency Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Appendix D Monroe County (Rochester), New York, Pretrial Services Corporation—Point 

Scale Scoring Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Appendix E Philadelphia Municipal Court and Common Pleas Court—Pretrial Release Guidelines 

Form and Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Appendix F U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Pretrial Services 

Agency—Advisement of Rights Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Executive Summary

Pretrial services programs perform two critically important functions in the effective administration of criminal

justice:

• They gather and present information about newly •

arrested defendants and about available release options

for use by judicial officers in deciding what (if any) •

conditions are to be set for defendants’ release prior

to trial.

• They supervise the defendants released from custody

during the pretrial period by monitoring their compli-•

ance with release conditions and by helping to ensure

they appear for scheduled court events.

When both functions are performed well, jurisdictions

can minimize unnecessary pretrial detention, reduce jail

crowding, increase public safety, ensure that released

defendants appear for scheduled court events, and lessen

invidious discrimination between rich and poor in the

pretrial process. This report describes how pretrial services programs operate and discusses related policy issues.

It focuses particularly on how these programs obtain and

convey information relevant to the pretrial release/detention decision and how, by working with the courts and

other justice system agencies, programs can help manage

and minimize the risks of nonappearance and pretrial crime.

Techniques Used to Inform the

Release/Detention Decision 

The core of pretrial services program operations is the

collection, verification, and analysis of information about

newly arrested defendants and available supervisory

options. Pretrial programs should collect and provide to

the court at least the following defendant information:

• Identity, including date of birth and gender.

• Community ties, including residence, employment,

and family status.

• Physical and mental condition, including alcohol or •

drug abuse.

• Criminal record, including history of adjudication of •

delinquency.

• Prior record of compliance with conditions of release, •

including record of appearing for scheduled court dates.

Defendants are primary sources of information about

themselves and should be interviewed as soon as possible

after arrest. Other sources—including the pretrial services

program’s own records, other criminal justice agencies,

motor vehicle departments, the defendant’s family members,

and the defendant’s employer—can provide information

about the defendant and can verify information provided

in interviews with the defendant. If information cannot

be verified, it should be labeled as unverified in the 

program’s report to the court.

Most pretrial services use the information they collect 

to develop recommendations or identify options for the

judicial officer who makes the release/detention decision.

The analysis process—risk assessment—is a key step in

the court’s decisionmaking process and, if the defendant

is released, in managing the risks of nonappearance and

pretrial crime.

Risk Management for Released

Defendants

Defendants who miss a court appearance generally return

to court when contacted, but a missed appearance nevertheless disrupts the court schedule, inconveniences victims

and other witnesses, delays case disposition, and wastes

valuable time. Pretrial services programs use a variety 

of monitoring and reminder techniques to anticipate and

avoid possible nonappearance problems. When a defendant

does miss a court appearance, programs seek to contact

the defendant immediately to resolve the problem. 

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

1
Pretrial services programs are not police agencies, and

their capacity to supervise defendants directly is often

limited by lack of both law enforcement powers and

resources. The following program activities can play 

an important role, however, in managing the risks that

released defendants pose to public safety:

• Monitoring released defendants’ compliance with •

conditions of release designed to minimize pretrial •

crime, including curfews, orders restricting contact •

with alleged victims and possible witnesses, home •

confinement, and drug and alcohol testing.

• Providing direct “intensive” supervision for some •

categories of defendants by using program staff and •

collaborating with the police, other agencies, and •

community organizations.

Sharing Information for Use

Beyond the Release/Detention

Decision

Pretrial services programs collect information that can be

valuable in the work of other justice system agencies, but

much of this information is of a very sensitive, personal

nature. Often it is collected from defendants who are

emotionally distraught and have had no contact with a

lawyer before the interview. Given the sensitive nature of

the information and the need to obtain information from

defendants who likely would be uncooperative if they

knew what they said could be made available to others, it

is important for pretrial services programs—and for the

justice systems within which they operate—to develop

realistic policies that ensure appropriate confidentiality

and prevent misuse of the information. New technology

will make it feasible both to share information broadly

and to establish safeguards for information that should

remain confidential.

Looking Toward the Future:

Key Issues

A great many courts still must make critically important

release/detention decisions without access to the information typically collected by pretrial services programs or

to the monitoring and supervision these programs can

provide. Even in jurisdictions with well-established pretrial services, a number of operational issues and new

challenges must be addressed in coming years. Much

remains to be learned if pretrial services programs are 

to reach their full potential. Key issues for the future

include how to—

• Bring effective pretrial services to jurisdictions that do

not yet have them.

• Handle pretrial release issues in cases involving •

juveniles charged as adults.

• Use new technologies to enhance the quality of pretrial 

release/detention decisionmaking and the supervision of

released defendants. 

• Use delegated release authority (including field 

citations, station house release, and jail release) most •

effectively. 

• Determine the extent to which, if at all, courts should •

continue to rely on commercial surety bail as a mechanism for releasing arrested persons prior to trial.

• More effectively structure judicial decisionmaking in

the pretrial process, without making the process a •

mechanical one.

• Develop a current base of useful knowledge about key

issues using research at the national and local levels. 

• Develop a full range of education and training programs

for pretrial practitioners and policymakers. 

E XECUTIVE S UMMARY

2
What Do Pretrial Services

Programs Do? 

Pretrial services programs play—or can play if their

potential is fully utilized—a critically important role in

the effective administration of criminal justice. While the

scope of program responsibilities varies to some extent

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

3

KEY POINTS

• Pretrial services programs perform two crucial functions:

— Gathering and presenting information about newly arrested defendants and about available release options

— for use by a judicial officer in making decisions concerning a defendant’s pretrial custody or release status.

— Supervising defendants who are released from custody during the pretrial period by monitoring their 

— compliance with release conditions and by helping to ensure they appear for scheduled court appearances

— and do not endanger community safety.

• Both functions described above are essential for jurisdictions to achieve the central goal of a fair and effective 

pretrial release/detention policy, which is to minimize unnecessary detention by releasing as many defendants as

possible who are likely to appear for scheduled court dates and who will refrain from criminal behavior before trial.

• The pretrial decision has significant consequences for the community. It affects how limited jail space is allocated

and how the risks of nonappearance and pretrial crime by released defendants are managed.

• The decision also has important consequences for defendants. It directly affects their ability to assert their 

innocence, negotiate a disposition, and mitigate the severity of a sentence.

• Pretrial release/detention policies and decisions have very important implications for society’s capacity to 

achieve the ideal of equal justice under law. By providing judicial officers with essential information for decisionmaking and by helping to supervise released defendants, pretrial services programs help courts reduce discrimi-•

nation based on wealth and other factors not related to risk of flight or danger to the community. Fair and

effective pretrial release policies are an essential component of equal justice.

• As pretrial services programs have evolved since the 1960s, they have increasingly demonstrated their capacity 

to provide information about defendants and about available supervised release options that is relevant to

assessing both the risk of flight and the risk to public safety. In some jurisdictions, programs have also developed a capacity to supervise defendants and to help minimize both types of risk.

Chapter 1 

Pretrial Services: An Overview

across jurisdictions, fully developed pretrial services 

programs perform two vital core functions:

• They gather and present the information about newly •

arrested defendants and about possible options for •

supervised release that judicial officers need when •

deciding whether or not to release these individuals. 
C HAPTER 1: P RETRIAL S ERVICES : A N O VERVIEW

4

THE CONTINUED PREVALENCE OF MONEY BAIL AS A MECHANISM FOR

DETERMINING PRETRIAL RELEASE OR DETENTION

Although release on nonfinancial conditions is now used far more widely than before the advent of the bail

reform movement in the 1960s, money bail is still the predominant mechanism used for release/detention decisionmaking in most American courts. A 1998 report published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that in

1994, in the 75 most populous jurisdictions in the United States, 56 out of every 100 defendants charged with a

felony were either released on money bail or detained because of inability to post bail. Of the 56, a total of 25

were able to gain their release while the other 31 awaited disposition of their cases in jail. Of the other 44, a

total of 37 were released under some form of nonfinancial conditions (although not necessarily under the 

supervision of a pretrial services program) and 7 were held without bond.a

a. Reaves, B.A., Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties, 1994,Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997:

17 (table 14).

• They supervise defendants who are released from custody during the pretrial period, monitoring their compliance with conditions of release that are designed to

minimize the risks of nonappearance and danger to

the community, reminding them of scheduled court

appearances, and reporting to the court on their performance while on pretrial release.

Both functions are essential for a judicial decisionmaking

process that, in each individual case, seeks to strike the

right balance between two core societal values: individual liberty and public safety. How this balance is struck

at the outset of a criminal proceeding—whether the

defendant is detained or released and, if released, what

level of supervision is provided—has enormous implications for both the community and the defendant. It also

has very important implications for society’s capacity to

meet the ideal of equal justice under the law.

Impact on the community 

Unnecessary pretrial detention means unnecessarily high

jail costs for the community as well as deprivation of the

defendant’s liberty. Despite unprecedented construction of

correctional facilities over the past two decades, many jails

are seriously overcrowded. Policies and decisions that result

in needless detention of arrestees contribute to jail overcrowding and, ultimately, to further expenditures of public

resources for construction and operation of jail facilities.

If defendants are released, however, two types of potentially

adverse consequences may affect the community: The

defendant may not return for scheduled court appearances,

or the defendant may commit a criminal offense, including

the attempted intimidation of victims or other witnesses.

To minimize unnecessary detention and adverse consequences to the community, both the initial release/detention decision and the implementation of a decision to

release require pertinent information about the defendant

and about available options for supervision. Pretrial services programs can provide the necessary information

and, when a decision is made to release a defendant during the pretrial period, can help manage the risk of nonappearance and the threat to public safety.

Impact on the accused 

If a defendant is ordered held in custody, or if money

bond is set at an amount the defendant cannot meet,

several significant consequences may result:

• The defendant who remains in jail may have difficulty 

• participating in his or her own defense. (An incarcer-

• ated defendant cannot look for friendly witnesses and,

• in some jurisdictions, is unlikely to have much contact 

• with a defense lawyer.)

• Defendants held in detention often have a heightened 

• incentive to plead guilty, even though they may have 
P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

5

• a valid defense, simply to gain their freedom—

• particularly if they can receive a sentence of “time 

• served” or receive credit for their jail time against a 

• relatively short jail or prison sentence.

• Statistically, defendants detained prior to trial plead 

• guilty more often, are convicted more often, and are 

• more likely to be sentenced to prison than are defen-

• dants who are released prior to trial.1

By contrast, released defendants can be in touch with a

lawyer relatively easily and can assist in developing a

defense to specific charges. They can also take steps to

reduce the severity of a sentence if they ultimately plead

or are found guilty by, for example, getting or keeping a

job, maintaining or reestablishing family ties, and developing a record of complying with conditions of release.2

Equal justice 

The concept of equal justice under law is deeply embedded

in the U.S. Constitution and is a core value of American

society. In the area of pretrial release/detention decisionmaking, it means, at a minimum, that all defendants should

have the same opportunity for consideration for release

without invidious discrimination based on race, sex, or

economic status. In particular, poor defendants should not

be denied pretrial release solely because they are financially unable to post a money bond (see “The Continued

Prevalence of Money Bail as a Mechanism for Determining

Pretrial Release or Detention”). By providing judicial

officers with information about defendants and available

supervision options, pretrial release programs enable

courts to move toward the goal of equal justice.

Need for This Report 

From a policy perspective, the rational goal of an effective policy for pretrial release and detention is clear:

Jurisdictions should seek to release as many arrested persons as possible (and thus minimize the use of jail space

for pretrial defendants), consistent with the objectives of

(1) ensuring attendance at required court proceedings,

and (2) minimizing threats to public safety.3

A variety of sources offer ample evidence that many jurisdictions are having difficulty balancing these objectives

and have not taken full advantage of the potential benefits

of pretrial services programs. Consider the following:

• The proportion of felony defendants released prior to 

• trial varies widely across jurisdictions, from as low as 

• 18 percent to as high as 88 percent.4

• Reported rates of rearrest and failure to appear (FTA) 

• for scheduled court appearances also vary widely. In 

• many jurisdictions, FTA rates reported in the 1990s 

• appear to be markedly higher than those in the 1960s 

• and 1970s.5

• Some jurisdictions with high release rates nevertheless 

• have relatively low FTA and rearrest rates.

• Minorities, especially blacks, are more likely to be 

• detained during the pretrial period than are white 

• defendants who have similar charges and prior records.6

The wide variations in pretrial release practices and outcomes, coupled with increasing jail populations and with

FTA and rearrest rates that often seem too high, should

give justice system policymakers and practitioners cause

to examine the pretrial policies (or, conversely, the absence

of such policies) in their jurisdictions. While more research

is clearly needed, even the fragmentary data now available

raise obvious questions. In particular, if some jurisdictions

can release a high percentage of newly arrested persons

without having unacceptably high FTA and rearrest rates,

why are others unable to achieve similar results?

This report is intended to provide justice system policymakers and practitioners with information and ideas that

can be useful in examining the effectiveness of pretrial

processes in their own jurisdictions. While this report

includes a discussion of issues related to pretrial services

for juveniles who are being prosecuted as adults (see

chapter 5), the focus is on the role of pretrial services

programs in handling cases involving adults charged with

crimes. Moreover, this report spotlights key policy issues,

identifies areas of disagreement and consensus, and

includes descriptions of operational practices and methods that pretrial services programs use to handle specific

types of situations. 

The report is intended for judges, court administrators,

prosecutors, public defenders and leaders of the private

defense bar, managers of pretrial services programs, and

senior officials in law enforcement agencies, probation

departments, agencies responsible for jail management,

and State and local criminal justice planning agencies. It

should also be useful for State legislators and for county
C HAPTER 1: P RETRIAL S ERVICES : A N O VERVIEW

6

THE CREATION OF PRETRIAL SERVICES AGENCIES IN THE FEDERAL

COURTS: MEETING THE NEED FOR RELIABLE INFORMATION

How the Federal judicial system responded to its need for more timely information to assist the pretrial release/

detention decision illustrates the value of using a pretrial services agency to meet this demand.The Federal Bail

Reform Act of 1966, directed primarily toward making the pretrial release/detention decision more fair and

rational, required judicial officers—judges and magistrates—to release defendants on the least restrictive conditions

that would ensure their appearance at trial.The law instructed judicial officers to consider the following factors:

• Nature and circumstance of the offense.

• Weight of evidence.

• Family ties.

• Employment.

• Financial resources.

• Character and mental condition.

• Length of time at current residence.

• Record of convictions.

• Appearance record at court proceedings.

Who would provide judicial officers with this information? The 1966 statute contained no mechanism for gathering

background information on defendants.This need for information served as the impetus for title II of the Speedy

Trial Act of 1974, which created 10 pilot pretrial services agencies in the Federal courts.The pilot agencies were

designed to provide judges with the information necessary to make conditional release decisions.The agencies

were authorized to collect, verify, and report to the judicial officer background information about defendants and

to recommend appropriate release conditions.The pilot agencies, following and expanding on approaches initially

developed by pretrial services projects in State court systems, developed strong support from judges and magistrates

in the pilot districts. In the early 1980s, when Congress was considering expansion of pretrial services into all

Federal courts, Federal magistrates testified that neither defense lawyers nor prosecutors were able to provide

them with the requisite information for an informed bail decision.

Members of the judiciary were clear on how to resolve this need: Judge Gerald B.Tjoflat (11th Circuit), then

Chairman of the Committee on the Administration of the Probation System of the Judicial Conference of the

United States, stated:

[T]he administration of justice is far better served when a magistrate or judge setting conditions of bail

under the Bail Reform Act of 1966 has sufficient accurate and objective information regarding the defendant,

his background, the offense and all other evidence that relates to the question of whether he will appear for

trial.The system is far better served when the judge can make an informed decision, and pretrial services has

made a major step in that direction.a

In the Pretrial Services Act of 1982, Congress expanded the pilot program by establishing pretrial service 

agencies in all 94 Federal district courts.

a.Tjoflat, G.B.“Extend the Operations of the Pretrial Services Agencies,” testimony presented at hearings before the Subcommittee on Crime

of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Congress, 1st Session,Washington, DC, 1981: 12.
P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

7

HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF BAIL AND PRETRIAL RELEASE/

DETENTION POLICIES

The Manhattan Bail Project and other pretrial services programs that started in the 1960s and 1970s were

designed to provide an alternative to the money bail system.Although specifics of the money bail system vary

from one jurisdiction to another, the basic principle is the same: Courts will release a defendant if he or she can

arrange to have bail bond posted in the amount of money set by the judicial officer. Courts assume that defendants

released on bond will return for future court appearances rather than lose their money or pledged collateral.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the person who posted bail and guaranteed the appearance of the defendant 

at trial was a private individual—usually a friend, relative, or employer of the accused.The personal association

between the defendant and surety was at least as important as the monetary stake of the surety in ensuring the

defendant’s appearance for trial. As the population grew more mobile in the 19th century, commercial bondsmen

gradually replaced private sureties.

For a fee, the bondsman would post the amount of the bail bond. Since the commercial bondsman would at least

theoretically be liable if the defendant fled, the bondsman would require defendants, or their friends and relatives, to post collateral or agree to indemnify the bondsman if the bond were forfeited for nonappearance.This

practice became well established by the end of the 19th century and was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in

1912 against claims that it was contrary to public policy. Since the late 19th century, money bail had been the

principal method used in the United States to resolve the question of whether a defendant in a criminal case

should be released before trial.

The transition to commercial bondsmen largely moved the pretrial release decision out of court control and

into the hands of the bondsmen. In a jurisdiction that relies on money bail, a judicial officer sets bail in a specific

amount or, alternatively, sets bail mechanically by reference to a “bail schedule” that fixes bond amounts in accordance with the seriousness of the charge.To obtain release on surety bond, the defendant has to be able and

willing to pay the bondsman a nonrefundable fee, typically 10 percent of the bond.The defendant may also need

to be able to provide collateral equal to or greater than the bond. Even then, the bondsman may decline to do

business with defendants deemed to be bad risks. As a result, the judicial officer who sets a money bond cannot

know whether a defendant will be able to get out of jail.This system is still the primary method of addressing

release/detention decisions in many jurisdictions today.

The consequence of relying on the money bail system is that the defendant’s freedom hinges largely on one 

factor—the ability to raise money. If the defendant can raise the money, even if the charges are serious and there

is a risk of flight or potential danger to the community, the defendant will be released. Conversely, a defendant

unable to raise the money languishes in jail even when the charges are minor, the person’s roots in the community reduce the likelihood of flight, and release poses little threat to community safety.

Recurrent criticism of this system, based on studies in Chicago, Cleveland, and the State of Missouri during the

first quarter of the 20th century, had scant impact. Not until the early 1960s were significant efforts made to

develop viable alternatives.The Manhattan Bail Project used a control group research design to test the hypothesis that courts could release more defendants successfully on their own recognizance if judges were given verified information at arraignment about the individual’s character and roots in the community.

Once the results confirmed the hypothesis, judges in Manhattan began releasing many more defendants on their

own recognizance. Moreover, these released defendants had considerably lower failure-to-appear rates than did 

(continued)
C HAPTER 1: P RETRIAL S ERVICES : A N O VERVIEW

8

HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF BAIL AND PRETRIAL RELEASE/

DETENTION POLICIES, CONTINUED

defendants released on bail. Acclaimed a success, the project was emulated rapidly across the country. Pretrial

release projects were implemented in dozens of other jurisdictions, and significant bail reform legislation was

passed by Congress and several States.

The initial reforms focused primarily on providing alternatives to the traditional surety bail system.The alternatives

fall into two main categories: (1) release on nonfinancial conditions that restrict the liberty of the accused in 

various ways, and (2) release under “deposit bail” procedures that bypass the professional bondsman and provide

for money bond (or a percentage of the bond amount, typically 10 percent) to be posted directly with the court.

During the 1970s and 1980s, legislation involving the release/detention decision began to focus increasingly on

the issue of potential danger to the community. At the Federal level, the Bail Reform Act was amended in 1984

to allow consideration of danger and to allow preventive detention in limited circumstances. Most States and the

District of Columbia now address danger in their bail laws and allow—at least implicitly—preventive detention

and denial of bail or severely restricted release options under some circumstances.

During the 1980s, as the volume of arrests increased in most jurisdictions, jail crowding became a significant

issue in many jurisdictions. In some localities, lawsuits brought on behalf of jail inmates led to the imposition of

jail population caps that required the release of new arrestees or previously detained inmates if the population

exceeded the ceiling. Some of the more recently created pretrial services programs evolved from local efforts 

to address jail crowding problems, especially in jurisdictions operating under court-ordered caps.

and city government officials concerned about developing policies that will promote public safety while minimizing the drain on public resources for jail construction

and operation. In jurisdictions that do not yet have welldeveloped pretrial services programs, this report may

serve as a catalyst for the development of programs to

improve both the release/detention decisionmaking

process and the capacity for effective supervision of

defendants released before trial.

Background:Why and How

Pretrial Services Programs 

Have Been Implemented 

Pretrial services programs, which now operate in more

than 300 counties and in all 94 districts in the Federal

court system, were not a part of any criminal justice 

system in 1960 (see “The Creation of Pretrial Services

Agencies in the Federal Courts: Meeting the Need for

Reliable Information”). In examining the potential role

and function of these programs, it is important to understand why pretrial services programs were originally

developed and how they have evolved since the first such

program—New York City’s Manhattan Bail Project—was

implemented in 1961 (see “Historical Evolution of Bail

and Pretrial Release/Detention Policies”).

Early bail reform efforts sought to improve the release/

detention decisionmaking process by improving the

breadth and quality of information available to judges at

the point of initial decisionmaking. Thus, for example,

the Manhattan Bail Project demonstrated that judges

would release more defendants on their own recognizance

if they had information regarding defendants’ housing

arrangements, family ties, and employment, rather than

information about only the current charge and the individual’s prior criminal record.7 Subsequent legislation,

including the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1966, encouraged judges to consider factors other than the seriousness

of the charge in setting conditions of release and to use

conditions other than the setting of a money bond amount.

Pretrial services programs were developed during the

1960s and 1970s to help provide judges with information
P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

9

that would enable them to use a range of nonfinancial

conditions. However, neither the legislation nor the courts

themselves produced effective policies to guide judges in

using information to set conditions of release in a fashion

that would maximize the number of persons who could

be released without posing unacceptable risks to public

safety. Jail crowding became an increasingly serious

problem as the volume of arrests rose during the 1980s

but did not lessen much as crime and arrest rates dropped

during the 1990s. A “second generation” of pretrial services programs that came into existence during this period focused primarily on trying to identify defendants

who were unable to make bail but who would be acceptable risks for release either on their own recognizance or

under supervision. These new programs were less firmly

rooted in concerns about equal justice than were the early

programs; rather, their primary concern was often simply

to help keep jail populations at an acceptable level.

The Context in Which Pretrial

Services Programs Operate 

Because jail crowding remained a pervasive problem in

localities throughout the United Stated during the 1990s,

some observers have begun to call for a comprehensive

reexamination of the “front end” of the criminal justice

process. Since pretrial services programs play—or can

play—an integral role in the early stages of criminal case

processing, it is important to understand the roles that

these programs and other justice system participants play

in the pretrial release/detention decision process.

The participants’ roles, responsibilities, and activities may

vary depending on their legal authority (different States have

different statutory provisions); the resources of the jurisdiction; its geographic location and case volume; and the

bundle of attitudes, traditions, expectations, and practices that

make up the local legal culture. One example of a pretrial

process, from arrest to trial or plea, is shown in the following

figure. The discussion below outlines key roles in the process.

Law enforcement personnel 

Police officers prepare incident reports and other documents providing basic information concerning the circumstances of the arrest or charge. Generally, either the

police agency responsible for the arrest or officials at the

jail fingerprint the arrested person and may check for any

prior criminal record. Usually, the police agency forwards

the incident report and any prior record information to the

prosecutor for further use in determining what charges

should be filed, although sometimes the police agency

files charges directly with the court.

Prosecutor 

In most jurisdictions, the prosecutor determines what

charge or charges will be filed, basing that decision on

police reports and other available information, including

the possible existence of other pending cases against the

arrestee. The prosecutor then draws up a formal charging

document (called by various names, often a complaint or

information) that sets forth the charges and files it with

the clerk of the court. At the first court appearance, the

prosecutor typically presents information to the court

regarding the charge; any prior criminal record; the existence

of any other pending cases; the condition of any victims;

the State’s view of the strength of its case; and, finally, a

recommendation concerning detention or release, which

may include setting bond at a specific amount.

Defense attorney 

The defense lawyer, whether retained or appointed by the

court to represent the defendant, interviews the defendant

as soon as possible. In court, the defense attorney will

make the strongest possible case for releasing the defendant on the least restrictive conditions. In many jurisdictions, however, the defendant is not represented by counsel

at the first appearance, when determinations concerning

release or detention are initially made.

Judicial officers 

Optimally, a judicial officer—a judge, magistrate, commissioner, or hearing officer—makes the initial pretrial

release/detention decision after considering the representations of the prosecutor and the defense attorney, as well

as significant background information provided by the

pretrial services program. In making this decision, judicial

officers are concerned about two types of risk—the risk

of flight or nonappearance for scheduled court appearances

and the risk to public safety. In assessing these risks, judicial officers tend to focus on four key factors:
C HAPTER 1: P RETRIAL S ERVICES : A N O VERVIEW

10

CASE EVENTS EXITS

PROGRAM

FUNCTIONS

Charges Dropped

Charges Dropped/

Adjudication

Arrest

First Court Appearance

Subsequent Court

Appearances

Disposition

Detention

Detention

Detention

Booking

Release on Bail

Release on Bail

Release on Bail

Release on Bail

Screening for Interview

Eligibility

Nonfinancial Release

Nonfinancial Release

Interview

Recommendations

Followup Procedures

Screening for Release

Eligibility

Verification

• Check-Ins

• Reminder Letter

• Drug Testing

• Social Services

• Others

PROTOTYPE OPERATIONS: EARLY INTERVENTION PRETRIAL SERVICES PROGRAMS
• The seriousness of the current charge, as set forth in the

• complaint and the representations of the prosecutor.

• The defendant’s prior criminal record, which is widely 

• viewed as relevant to assessing the risk to public safety 

• that would be posed by a decision to release or to set a 

• relatively low money bond amount.

• Information about the defendant, including community 

and family ties; employment status; housing; existence 

and nature of any substance abuse problems; and (if

the defendant had been arrested before) record of

compliance with conditions of release set on previous

occasions, including any failures to appear.

• Information about available supervisory options if the

defendant is released.

While the statutory framework within which judicial officers make release/detention decisions varies from State to

State, it generally gives the judicial officer broad discretion in setting conditions of release, including the setting

of bond amounts. Statutes typically direct the judicial

officer to consider a number of factors in setting release

conditions but give little guidance with respect to how

to weigh different factors. (See the section “Judicial

Discretion and the Effective Management of Release/

Detention Decisionmaking” in chapter 5.) 

While decisions about release conditions are generally

made by a judicial officer (especially in felony charge

cases), in many situations a judicial officer has a minor

role or no role in the decisionmaking process. Instead,

other individuals may have primary or exclusive responsibility (see “Delegation or Abrogation? When the

Release Decision Is Not Made by a Judge”).

Pretrial services staff 

Pretrial services program personnel gather and present

information pertinent to the defendant’s risk of flight and

community safety. In some jurisdictions, the program also

may be responsible for providing information on available

options for supervised release and for conducting mental

health screening or drug testing and informing the court

of the results. Although practices vary (see chapter 2),

many programs also present an analysis of the known

risk factors and make recommendations concerning

possible release options.

Bail bondsmen 

Surety bail remains a widely used mechanism for

release/detention decisionmaking in many jurisdictions.

In these jurisdictions, once bail is set at a designated

amount, bondsmen or bail agents decide whether to offer

the defendant bail. They also determine what fee will be

charged and what (if any) collateral will be required.

Organizational Structures for

Pretrial Services Programs—

Five Examples 

Pretrial services programs in Kentucky, the District of

Columbia, Florida, Arizona, and Pennsylvania are representative of the various ways in which jurisdictions have

structured pretrial services agencies, different techniques

the agencies have employed to obtain information that

will assist judicial officers in making release/detention

decisions, and some of the methods they have used to

supervise released defendants. One of the agencies operates on a statewide basis, one serves the Nation’s capital,

and three operate at the local level. 

Kentucky: A statewide pretrial 

services agency 

The Kentucky State Legislature established the Pretrial

Services and Court Security Agency in 1976 to replace

the commercial bail bonding system. The new agency

immediately assumed responsibility for implementing 

the pretrial release process, and the enabling act made 

it a crime to post a bond for profit in Kentucky.

The agency now has 220 staff members located in 60

offices, serving a State population of approximately 4

million. The agency operates within the judicial branch

as part of Kentucky’s Administrative Office of the

Courts. Staff members interview about 180,000 defendants each year, or approximately 84 percent of all

arrestees. They conduct interviews around the clock in

the State’s population centers of Louisville, Lexington,

and the Kentucky sector of the Cincinnati metropolitan

area. Interviewers are on duty 16 to 20 hours per day in

smaller cities and on call at all times in rural regions.

The agency maintains a policy of neutrality. The training

manual advises new officers: “The neutral stance you

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

11
maintain in your daily operation sets you apart in the

criminal justice structure. . . . [I]f you cannot sustain an

approach of neutrality in implementing this information,

you will not be an effective pretrial officer.”

A pretrial officer interviews all arrestees except those who

decline to be interviewed or who post bail immediately.

The officer’s top interview priority is obtaining background

information for use by the judge at the defendant’s first

court appearance. Increasingly, the agency is able to draw

on information in its own records system. As is generally

the situation nationally, immediate legwork to obtain

more current and detailed information poses the greatest

challenge to officers operating within the tight timeframe

in which pretrial services agencies function.

Interview information is treated as confidential—only the

judge is given access to the report, and neither the interview nor the report can be subpoenaed. The information

goes into the agency’s records system for future reference

in subsequent cases involving the defendant and also may

be used by the agency’s failure-to-appear unit.

Pretrial officers are responsible for verifying the interview information as rapidly as possible to complete the

process prior to the defendant’s first court appearance.

Priority items for verification are residency, employment,

and family contacts in the locality. To verify information,

staff members make phone calls to references and interview family members who are present at the jail during

the interview with the defendant. 

C HAPTER 1: P RETRIAL S ERVICES : A N O VERVIEW

12

DELEGATION OR ABROGATION? WHEN THE RELEASE DECISION IS

NOT MADE BY A JUDGE

In many American jurisdictions, judicial officers do not decide whether an arrested person will be detained or

released. Some observers have, however, taken the position that the critical issue, at least at the initial decision

point, is not whether the decisionmaker is a judge but, rather, whether there are clear and appropriate criteria

for making the decision and a decisionmaker who has adequate information and has been well trained in pretrial

release/detention decisionmaking. Decisionmakers and release/detention mechanisms include the following:

• Police officers and desk appearance tickets. Desk appearance tickets, or citations, are summonses given

to defendants at the police station, usually for petty offenses or misdemeanor charges.The tickets can greatly

reduce the use of pretrial detention and can save the court system a great deal of time by avoiding initial pretrial release or bail hearings in minor cases. Because they are typically based only on the current charge (and

sometimes on a computer search to check for outstanding warrants), the potential exists to release high-risk

defendants without supervision or monitoring. As computerized access to criminal history information becomes

easier (and thus enables rapid identification of individuals with prior records indicating they pose a risk to the

community), desk appearance tickets may become more widely used. (See the section “Delegated Release

Authority” in chapter 5.)

• Jail administrators. In many jurisdictions, jail officials have authority to release (or, in some instances, to

refuse to book into jail) arrested persons who meet certain criteria. In some localities, they exercise this

authority pursuant to a court order that specifies priorities with respect to the categories of defendants that

can be admitted to the jail and the categories that are to be released when the jail population exceeds a

court-imposed ceiling.The “automatic release” approach helps minimize jail crowding, but does so at the risk

of releasing some defendants who pose a high risk of becoming fugitives or committing criminal acts.To help

minimize these risks, some sheriffs and jail administrators have developed their own pretrial services or

“release on recognizance” units with staff who conduct risk assessments based on interviews with arrestees,

contact with references, and prior record checks.

(continued)
Pretrial officers in Kentucky must be prepared to present

information to the judge at the court appearance and to

provide—or renew the search for—information the judge

may request at that time. Using a point-scoring system

that accounts for current charges, prior record, and family

and community ties, the agency recommends release on

recognizance (ROR) for defendants who score above the

cutoff line. Judges are required by law to consider ROR

and to identify in writing issues regarding risk of flight or

community safety, although this does not always happen

in practice. In making the release/detention decision,

judges can use a variety of methods in addition to ROR,

including placing the defendant in the custody of a person

or organization, placing restrictions on the defendant’s

travel or residence, and requiring the defendant to post 

a cash bond with the court.

The agency supervises defendants principally through 

a tracking and notification system, using the system to

remind defendants of upcoming court appearances. More

intensive supervision is reserved for major felony cases

and court requests. Drug testing is done at court request.

The FTA rate for defendants under the agency’s supervision is 8 percent. Most FTAs occur in cases involving

minor offenses, such as public intoxication. In most FTA

cases, a warrant is issued and the agency’s FTA unit

draws on all the information the agency has collected 

to locate and return the defendant.

Kentucky Pretrial Services reviews its risk assessment

point-scoring system every 2 years. The process includes

suggestions from judges, circuit clerks, jail officials, and a

sample group of pretrial service officers. The agency has

an active inservice training program and is working to

broaden officer skills related to domestic violence, cultural

diversity, victim advocacy, and driving while intoxicated.

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

13

DELEGATION OR ABROGATION? WHEN THE RELEASE DECISION IS

NOT MADE BY A JUDGE, CONTINUED

• Bail schedules.These are predetermined schedules setting levels of bail (from release on recognizance to amounts

of surety bond) based solely on the offense charged. Depending on local practices, release pursuant to a bail

schedule may take place at a police station, at the local jail, or at court.This practice can save time for judicial

officers and allow rapid release of defendants who can afford to post the bail amount. However, release determinations based solely on the current charge are of dubious value because there is no proven relationship between

a particular charge and risk of flight or crime. Release pursuant to a bail schedule depends simply on the defendant’s ability to post the amount of the bond. Moreover, when a defendant is released by posting bond set pursuant

to a bail schedule, there is generally no capacity for supervision to minimize the risks of crime and nonappearance.

• Bail bondsmen.When a judicial officer sets the amount of bond that a defendant must produce to be released,

or when bond is set mechanically on the basis of a bail schedule, the real decisionmakers are often the surety 

bail bondsmen. If no bondsman will offer bond, the defendant without other sources of money remains in jail.

The defendant’s ability to pay a bondsman the 10-percent fee (and sometimes to post collateral) often bears no

relationship to his or her risk of flight or danger to the community.

• Pretrial services agencies. In some jurisdictions, these agencies have authority to release certain categories of

defendants.The authority is usually limited to relatively minor cases, although agencies in a few jurisdictions can

release some categories of felony defendants. Because the pretrial services agency can obtain information about

the defendant’s prior record, community ties, and other pending charges, its decision to release or detain is

based on more extensive information and criteria than when the decision is based on application of a bail

schedule. However, because these programs lack the independence of judicial officers, they can be targets for•

political and public pressure.
District of Columbia Pretrial Services

Agency: Merging State and Federal 

procedures 

The District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency has

served the Superior Court since the District’s courts were

reorganized in the early 1970s to resemble the structure

of most State court systems. The agency also provides

pretrial services to the U.S. District Court for the District

of Columbia.

The agency, with nearly 170 staff members, operates 24

hours a day, 7 days a week. The director reports to an

executive committee composed of the chief judges of the

Federal and district appellate and trial courts, the U.S.

Attorney, the public defender, and the director of the

District’s Court Services and Offender Services Agency.

As of 1998, along with the courts and criminal justice

agencies in the District, the agency was transitioning to

Federal status under the supervision of a trustee appointed by the Attorney General of the United States.

In 1998, agency staff conducted more than 22,000 interviews in the cell blocks of the Federal and D.C. courthouses. Staff presented more than 20,000 reports to the

court and also conducted postrelease interviews in more

than 12,000 cases to explain release conditions. Interview

information entered into an automated system forms part

of the basis for a printout that becomes the report presented to the court. Most defendants are interviewed less

than 24 hours after they have been arrested. D.C. Pretrial

Services does not interview individuals arrested on traffic

charges or municipal ordinance violations.

Defendants are tested for recent drug use, and the results

are entered into the automated information system used

in preparing the report for the judge. Both the interviews

and the drug tests are conducted voluntarily. At the outset

of the process, the interviewer describes the purpose of

the interview or drug test and how the information will

be used and informs the defendants of their right to

refuse to participate without the advice of counsel.

During the interview, the defendant is asked for references to verify residence, employment, and community

ties. Verification takes place after the interview. Date of

birth is checked, along with criminal history, through a

National Crime Information Center (NCIC) record check.

Defendants who have no phone numbers for contacts and

defendants who are reluctant to give references pose the

biggest obstacles to verification, along with unavailable

or uncooperative references.

The agency provides its printout report to the court, prosecutor, and defense counsel. The report reflects the information gathered in the interview along with the drug test

results and prior record check. It does not specify reference names or phone numbers, nor does it cover some

types of possibly relevant (but highly sensitive) information, such as whether a defendant has AIDS. However, a

“consult” notification on the report signals the judge or

commissioner to obtain further information from agency

staff with respect to this type of information.

The agency does not use a point-scoring or bail guidelines system. Rather, officers specify risk factors with

respect to flight and community safety and, for each factor, identify a proposed solution, usually through a condition of release. Release on recognizance, for example,

might be conditioned on the defendant’s providing proof

of address within 24 hours.

The agency’s computer system is an important part of its

operations. The automated system is used to record information about each defendant, conditions of release, and

compliance with conditions. Computer-generated letters

remind defendants of their next court date and direct

them to acknowledge receipt of the reminder letter. The

drug-testing laboratory, located in the Superior Court

Building, performs more than 80,000 urinalysis tests

annually on persons in a pretrial status, and the results

are entered immediately into the automated system for

use in setting conditions of release and monitoring compliance. The agency is planning to install an electronic

mail process for notifying judges of violations of conditions of release.

At any given time, approximately 9,500 defendants are

under agency supervision; of these, about 500 are assigned

to heightened or intensive supervision or are participants

in the Drug Court Program. The agency follows up promptly on any missed court appearance using a three-person

FTA unit that operates mostly through telephone contacts.

C HAPTER 1: P RETRIAL S ERVICES : A N O VERVIEW

14
Monroe County, Florida: Pretrial services 

in a rural environment

The Monroe County Pretrial Services Program began

operations in 1988 in response to a problem of rising

caseloads and severe jail overcrowding. Monroe County

includes the Florida Keys—a 120-mile chain of small

islands that stretches from the southern tip of the mainland

to Key West—plus a portion of the mainland that is largely

within Everglades National Park. The county has a population of only 78,000 persons, but it receives more than 4

million visitors each year. The pretrial services program

has nine staff members who work in several locations—

a main office in Key West, an office at the detention center in Key West, and satellite locations in the other two

towns (Plantation Key and Marathon) that have a courthouse and a jail. During a single year, the program conducts approximately 3,300 interviews and supervises

approximately 650 defendants released on nonfinancial

conditions. The program director reports to the court

administrator for Florida’s Sixteenth Judicial Circuit.

Three of the program’s four investigators are located in

Key West, the county seat and main population center.

Every day (including weekends and holidays), staff interview newly arrested defendants at the jail beginning at 

7 a.m. By the time defendants first appear before a judge

at about 1:30 p.m., the investigators have obtained their

addresses and information about their family and community ties, employment, and prior criminal records.

Time permitting, staff also will have verified information

obtained through the interviews by contacting family

members or other references. Additionally, if the charge

involves a victim (and especially if the charge involves

domestic violence), staff will have tried to contact the

alleged victim to ask his or her opinion about the release

of the defendant and to learn of any concerns about

future contact with the defendant. Staff will also have

conducted a criminal history record check, beginning with

the program’s own records of any prior contacts with the

same defendant. Using a computer, the staff check Monroe

County records and criminal history information maintained by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and

the NCIC.

Before the court session begins, staff will use a pointscoring form to develop a recommendation concerning

ROR or supervised release for each defendant. No recommendation is made concerning release on money

bond. At the first appearance hearing, a staff member

presents the information and recommendations and either

answers questions or seeks to obtain additional information.

The procedures in the other two jail and courthouse locations are similar to those followed in Key West but are

complicated by staffing limitations—the program has

only one full-time staff member in Marathon and one

part-time officer in Plantation Key. 

In making the release/detention decision, the judge considers information provided by the program and the

staff’s recommendations but may also exercise discretion

to set a money bond amount. Under Florida law, the

judge must consider two primary criteria in establishing

conditions of release: likelihood of appearance for scheduled

court dates and risk of physical danger to the community.

There is a statutory presumption in favor of nonmonetary

release except in capital cases, but judges nevertheless

make extensive use of financial conditions of release. A

bail schedule is used to set bond amounts in misdemeanor

cases, and money bond amounts are commonly set in 

both felony and misdemeanor cases when the judge

decides not to release a person on nonfinancial conditions.

Occasionally, a judge may set a money bond amount and

also impose additional conditions such as periodic drug

testing and call-in reporting, both administered by the

pretrial services program.

When a defendant is released under supervision of the

pretrial services program, program staff review the 

conditions of release with the defendant and explain the

requirements for reporting by phone or in person. The

call-ins and in-person visits are used as an opportunity 

to remind the defendant about the next court date. If a

defendant under the program’s supervision fails to report

as required, the program’s compliance officer (or one of

the staff members in Marathon and Plantation Key if the

defendant resides in the Middle or Upper Keys) immediately seeks to make contact by phone or through a home

visit. Usually, the problems can be resolved quickly and

informally. However, if there is egregious noncompliance

or if the defendant appears to have fled the community,

the program will report the facts to the court and request

that a bench warrant be issued. A bench warrant will also

be issued if the defendant fails to appear for a scheduled

court date. When a warrant is issued, program staff try to

locate the defendant, learn what happened, and encourage the defendant to return promptly to court. If there is

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

15
an acceptable reason for the nonappearance, the warrant

may be rescinded.

In addition to gathering information for the initial release/

detention decision and staying in touch with defendants

released on their own recognizance or on supervised

release, the program monitors the jail population. A program staff member reviews the jail records, interviews

any defendants who may have been missed during the

initial round of interviewing, and updates interview and

verification information on defendants who have been

unable to make bond. If the information indicates that 

the defendant would be a good candidate for release, the

program submits a written report, with recommendations,

to the court. The program also notifies the defense attorney, who can request a bond-reduction hearing.

Maricopa County, Arizona: Pretrial 

services for a high-growth area 

Maricopa County, Arizona, first launched its Pretrial

Services Agency in 1975 with Federal Law Enforcement

Assistance Administration (LEAA) funding. Three years

later, the county assumed funding by incorporating the

agency into the Superior Court, where the agency now 

is located under the chief pretrial officer/administrator.

With a staff of 48 as of mid-1999 (up from 36 in 1997),

the agency serves Phoenix and the surrounding county,

where the population is approximately 2.8 million—an

increase of more than a million since 1985. Staff conduct

interviews at the Madison Street Jail in Phoenix, where

the Central Intake Unit is located. In 1996, pretrial officers interviewed more than 44,000 arrested felony-charge

defendants (75 to 80 percent of all initial appearances),

excluding only defendants also charged with probation or

parole violations, immigration law violations, or flight

from other jurisdictions.

Judicial officers consider the agency’s bail guidelines

matrix, which incorporates a point scale, in deciding

whether to order ROR or conditional release and in setting money bail amounts. Arizona statutes and constitutional provisions allow detention of persons charged with

felonies if, after a hearing, they are found to pose a risk

of substantial danger to a person or to the community

that cannot be met by any conditions of release. When a

money bail amount is set, it can be posted either in cash

or through a bail bondsman. 

Interviews conducted by pretrial services program staff

focus primarily on obtaining information about community ties and criminal history. The agency tries to verify

as much information as possible before the initial court

appearance. However, the commissioners who preside

over initial appearances frequently must act on the basis

of uncorroborated information because the officer who

conducted the interview is not always able to reach references in time to verify employment and residence information. Officers conduct interviews using a laptop computer.

For presentation to the court, the officer provides a 

printout of the completed automated interview form.

The score that the agency assigns using the bail guidelines classification matrix provides a basis for judicial

officers in setting release conditions or ordering detention. Risk factors incorporated into the matrix include

current charge, prior record severity, prior failures to

appear, and the defendant’s living situation and employment. The completed form presented at the initial appearance before the commissioner shows the calculation of

the risk factors and may include additional officer comments. A review of the guidelines was initiated in 1999.

Although many Maricopa County defendants obtain

release on surety bond, some are released on nonfinancial

conditions that involve supervision by the pretrial services agency. Some defendants in the agency’s supervision program are simply required to report weekly (either

by telephone or in person), while others are under intensive supervision that can include 24-hour house arrest,

field visits, and random drug testing. The level of supervision is stipulated in the release conditions set by the

initial appearance commissioner. 

The failure-to-appear unit, consisting of two officers,

concentrates on locating nonappearing defendants placed

under the agency’s supervision within 7 days after the

missed court date. If the defendant does not appear for

the next scheduled event, the court issues a bench warrant. For failure to comply with conditions, the agency

uses a three-step process. First, it gives the defendant a

verbal warning with a reminder of imminent termination

from the program if noncompliance continues. Staff

members may also refer the defendant to drug counseling

if urinalysis tests have been positive. For a second incident of noncompliance, the defendant receives a sanction,

such as increased contact or a switch from telephone

check-in to office visit, accompanied by a reminder of

C HAPTER 1: P RETRIAL S ERVICES : A N O VERVIEW

16
P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

17

imminent termination if noncompliance continues. The

third time, staff members terminate the defendant from

the release program and recommend revocation of release

to the court.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Improving pretrial

release practices through a guidelines

approach and the use of new technology 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was one of the first jurisdictions

in the United States to have a full-fledged pretrial services

program operating on an around-the-clock, 7-day-a-week

basis. First established in 1970, the Philadelphia program

has changed substantially since its early days. It is now a

pretrial release guidelines approach developed on the basis

of extensive research, employing a broad range of supervisory options for released defendants (see “Learning From

Experience and Policy-Focused Research: The Background

to Philadelphia’s Adoption of Bail Guidelines and

Supervised Release”). 

Currently, with more than 70,000 new arrests annually,

pretrial services staff conduct about 60 percent of their

interviews by video teleconference, using two-way linkages between the program’s central location and five

satellite police lockups. Staff conduct the other interviews in person at the police headquarters building,

but—in light of the success in conducting interviews by

video—all interviewing will probably be conducted by

video in the near future. Information obtained through

the interviews is entered directly into the program’s computer system, as is information about the defendant’s

criminal history and prior record of compliance with

release conditions.

Once the district attorney has made a charging decision,

information about the charge is also entered into the

computer. The computer is programmed to analyze the

information about the defendant and the specific charge

and to place the defendant into one of 40 categories in 

a matrix of pretrial release guidelines. The defendant’s

placement in the matrix, reflecting the severity of the

charge and the predicted risk of failure to appear or rearrest, provides a basis for the bail commissioner to set

conditions of release following guidelines applicable 

to the category.

The program provides options for ROR for low-risk

defendants and for release to structured pretrial supervision of medium- to high-risk defendants charged with

relatively serious crimes. These are defendants who

would probably otherwise have remained in jail because

of inability to post money bail. One of the critical functions of the pretrial services program is to supervise these

releasees using a variety of case management techniques,

including personal reporting, drug testing, and arranging

for housing, drug treatment, and other needed services.

As of mid-1999, Philadelphia’s pretrial services program

operated with a staff of 107 full-time and 140 part-time

employees who interview defendants, verify information

obtained through the interviews, prepare the guidelines

worksheets and reports (using the computer program),

notify defendants of upcoming court dates, supervise

medium- to high-risk defendants, and follow up on

defendants who fail to comply with the conditions that

have been set. FTA and rearrest rates have dropped

sharply since 1992, even though release rates are high

compared with rates in most other urban jurisdictions.

Furthermore, the system has been able to keep the jail

population under control.

Methodology and Organization

of This Report 

This report’s review of issues and practices in the pretrial

services field has drawn from three main types of sources.

First, a literature review covered relevant case law, numerous

articles and monographs, three sets of national standards

addressing pretrial release, a report on the results of a

1989 national survey of pretrial services programs (the

most recent survey data available), and documents and

reports prepared by individual pretrial services programs.

Second, structured interviews were conducted in person

and by telephone with criminal justice professionals,

including pretrial service agency officials, judges, court

administrators, prosecutors, defense counsel, and academic

researchers. Third, the authors have benefited from comments and suggestions made at meetings of an advisory

board composed of a State trial judge, a trial court administrator, Federal and State pretrial services agency managers, and experienced researchers in the pretrial field.
C HAPTER 1: P RETRIAL S ERVICES : A N O VERVIEW

18

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE AND POLICY-FOCUSED RESEARCH:

THE BACKGROUND TO PHILADELPHIA’S ADOPTION OF BAIL

GUIDELINES AND SUPERVISED RELEASE

In response to concerns about inconsistencies among judges in release/detention decisionmaking, Philadelphia

began exploring the concept of pretrial release guidelines in 1978. Despite the existence of an active and wellestablished pretrial services agency, money bail remained an important and widely used option at that time, and

the practices of individual judges in using nonfinancial conditions and in setting bail amounts varied widely.Working

with researcher John Goldkamp and his colleagues, the Philadelphia Municipal Court arranged a study of judges’

actual bail decisionmaking practices. Data were collected on 4,800 bail decisions made during the 1977–79 period,

including information on charges against the defendant, past criminal history, prior performance on pretrial

release, employment, community and family ties, demographics, and subsequent performance on pretrial release.

Analysis of the data allowed researchers to identify factors that judges commonly used in deciding to release

defendants on their own recognizance and to set money bail at different amounts, and indicated that the significant

disparities in bail release/detention decisions existed because different judges weighted the factors in different

ways.The second stage of the research involved extensive discussion of these findings, in addition to collaborative

development and testing of a set of “voluntary” bail guidelines that judges could use in making bail decisions.a

The guidelines incorporated a grid or matrix that categorized defendants on the seriousness of the current

charges and a risk classification that ranked defendants according to likelihood of flight or rearrest.When the

current charge and risk assessment data were put together, a defendant would fall into one of 60 (later reduced

to 40) possible categories. For each category, there would be a suggested option or range of options that could

include release on recognizance (ROR) for low-risk defendants or the setting of money bail in amounts that

increased to correspond with the severity of the charge and the severity of the risk. At that time (early 1980s),

the guidelines included no provision for supervised nonfinancial release of medium- to high-risk defendants.

Findings from the second-stage research were promising—particularly the evidence that the guidelines approach

produced significantly more consistent decisionmaking (thus reducing the inequities associated with the bail function and the use of pretrial detention) and that it could be used to generate feedback to judges about the consequences of their decisions for individual cases and for the system as a whole (including impacts on jail population).

On the basis of these findings, the Philadelphia Municipal Court judges decided to adopt bail guidelines for use by

the entire court beginning in 1982. Before full implementation and evaluation of the guidelines approach, however,

a dramatic upsurge in arrests during the 1980s produced a jail overcrowding crisis that had an enormous impact

on pretrial release practices.

In 1987, litigation brought in Federal court on behalf of inmates of the Philadelphia jails resulted in a consent

decree that contained or generated a number of provisions designed to reduce the jail population and maintain

it at or below a “maximum allowable population.” One such provision placed a moratorium on admission to the 

(continued)
P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

19

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE AND POLICY-FOCUSED RESEARCH:

THE BACKGROUND TO PHILADELPHIA’S ADOPTION OF BAIL

GUIDELINES AND SUPERVISED RELEASE, CONTINUED

Philadelphia jails for all but those individuals charged with very serious crimes against the person. In practice, this

meant that whenever the jail population exceeded the allowable maximum, defendants would have to be released

from detention if they did not meet the strict criteria for admission.The result was the release from pretrial

detention of a large number of defendants with drug or alcohol problems, with lengthy criminal records, or with

histories of willful failure to appear. Not surprisingly, these defendants—who made up approximately 40 percent

of the incoming caseload in Philadelphia—had very high rates of failure to appear.

The combination of a jail population cap and procedures severely limiting admissions to jail meant that pretrial

release/detention decisions made in Municipal Court at the defendant’s first appearance were rendered virtually

meaningless. Furthermore, the limited pretrial services program resources were significantly diverted away from

facilitating release at initial appearance to activities supporting reviews of the detention population in efforts to

find candidates for conditional release.The bail guidelines system was completely eviscerated by the emergency

procedures put in place as a result of the consent decree.

Developing a viable plan to overcome the effects of the jail population limit and other provisions of the consent

decree and to restore credibility to the criminal justice process in Philadelphia took several years. In 1992, the

city adopted an Alternatives to Incarceration Plan designed to minimize the unnecessary use of confinement and

to provide accountability and supervision for persons released to the community both before trial and after conviction.The cornerstone of the plan was an updated version of the bail guidelines system initially developed a

decade earlier, augmented by an enhanced capacity for supervision of released defendants.b

A key feature of the new approach was the establishment of an option for release to structured pretrial supervision of medium- to high-risk defendants charged with relatively serious crimes.These were defendants who under

former practices (i.e., before the consent decree) would probably have remained in jail because judges believed

that they were not good risks for ROR, and they were unable to post money bail, even when set at a relatively

low amount.The earlier bail guidelines approach in Philadelphia had included no provision for supervised release

of these categories of defendants; this time, the provision of support services through the pretrial services program (either directly or by referral) was a key component.The pretrial services program also continued to have

responsibility for obtaining the information relevant to risk categorization and presenting the information to the

judicial officer at first appearance.

a. Goldkamp, J.S., and M.R. Gottfredson, Judicial Guidelines for Bail:The Philadelphia Experiment,Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,

National Institute of Justice, 1984.

b. Goldkamp, J.S., and M.K. Harris, An Alternatives-to-Incarceration Plan for Philadelphia: Findings and Proposed Strategies, Philadelphia: Crime and

Justice Research Institute, 1992.
The remainder of this report describes and analyzes the

operations of pretrial services programs and outlines key

challenges facing these programs as they look to the

future:

• The techniques pretrial services programs use to gather 

• and present information in making release/detention 

• decisions are examined in chapter 2.

• The risk management role of pretrial services agencies 

• in supervising defendants subject to court-ordered 

• release conditions is explored in chapter 3.

• The viability of sharing information gathered by pretrial

• services agencies in other stages of the criminal justice 

• process is assessed in chapter 4.

• Critical issues concerning pretrial release that policy-

• makers and practitioners will need to address in the 

• near future are discussed in chapter 5.

• Information about available resources is provided in 

• chapter 6.

• Sample forms and documents are presented in 

• appendixes A through F. 

Notes

1. See, for example, Foote, C., “Compelling Appearance

in Court—Administration of Bail in Philadelphia,”

University of Pennsylvania Law Review 102 (1954):

1031–1079; Rankin, A., “The Effect of Pretrial

Detention,” New York University Law Review 39 (1964):

641–655; Clarke, S.H., and S.T. Kurtz, “The Importance

of Interim Decisions to Felony Trial Court Dispositions,”

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 74 (1983);

Gottfredson, M.R., and D.M. Gottfredson, Decision

Making in Criminal Justice: Toward a Rational Exercise

of Discretion, New York: Plenum Press, 1988. 

2. Freed, D., and P. Wald, Bail in the United States:

1964, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice and

Vera Foundation, 1964: 45–46; President’s Commission

on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice,

The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, Washington,

DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967: 31.

3. Goldkamp, J.S., “Judicial Responsibility for Pretrial

Release Decision Making and the Information Role of

Pretrial Services,” Federal Probation 57 (1) (March

1993): 31. 

4. Clark, J., and D.A. Henry, “The Pretrial Decision,”

Judicature 81 (1997): 76–77. Clark and Henry note that

in the Federal system, where the same statute governs

pretrial release decisionmaking in all districts, release

rates ranged between 18 percent and 68 percent. In 

large jurisdictions participating in the National Pretrial

Reporting Project sponsored by the Bureau of Justice

Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice, the range

was between 30 percent and 88 percent.

5. Ibid. The failure to appear (FTA) rates of the 40 jurisdictions studied in the National Pretrial Reporting Project

ranged between 2 percent and 56 percent, averaging 25

percent. By contrast, in 1961 the average FTA rate in

large jurisdictions was 6 percent; in 1971 it was 9 percent.

Also see Thomas, W., Bail Reform in America, Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1976.

6. Juszkiewicz, J., “Processing of Felony Defendants, 1992:

A Profile in Disparity?” Paper presented at the Annual

Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, 1994.

7. Ares, C.E., A. Rankin, and H. Sturz, “The Manhattan

Bail Project: An Interim Report on the Use of Pretrial

Parole,” New York University Law Review 38 (1963): 67;

Rankin, A., “The Effect of Pretrial Detention.”

C HAPTER 1: P RETRIAL S ERVICES : A N O VERVIEW

20
Chapter 2 

Techniques Pretrial Services Agencies Use 

to Inform the Release/Detention Decision

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21

KEY POINTS

• By providing reliable information to the courts, pretrial services programs can enhance the ability of judicial

officers to make fair, equitable, and effective pretrial release/detention decisions.

• Pretrial services programs should collect and provide to the court at least the following information about

newly arrested defendants:

— Identity, including date of birth and gender.

— Community ties, including residence, employment, and family status.

— Physical and mental condition, including information concerning abuse of alcohol or drugs.

— Criminal record, including history of adjudications of delinquency.

— Prior record of compliance with conditions of release, including record of appearing for scheduled court dates.

• Cases involving charges of domestic violence pose particular challenges for courts and for pretrial services

programs. Pretrial services programs can help judicial officers make release/detention decisions in these cases

by obtaining and presenting the following information:

— The defendant’s relationship with the alleged victim, including living situation and whether they have 

— children in common.

— The possible existence of any court orders (past or current) restraining the defendant from contacting 

— the victim.

— Substance abuse problems of the defendant.

— Possible living arrangements, separate from the alleged victim, that may be available for the defendant 

— if released.

— Mechanisms that can be used to prevent contact between the defendant and the alleged victim during the

— pretrial period and to monitor the defendant’s conditions of release.

• In addition to information about defendants, pretrial services programs should also obtain and provide to the 

court information about available supervisory options.

(continued)
C HAPTER 2: T ECHNIQUES P RETRIAL S ERVICES A GENCIES U S E

22

KEY POINTS, CONTINUED

• Defendants are primary sources of information about themselves.They should be interviewed very shortly

after arrest to begin the process of gathering and verifying essential information prior to the defendant’s first •

court appearance.

• When interviewing defendants, pretrial services program staff should advise them about the purposes of the

interview, the neutral role of the pretrial services agency, the types of information to be collected, how the

information will be used, and the fact that their participation in the interview is voluntary.

• Other sources—including the pretrial services program’s own records of prior cases involving the same

defendant, other criminal justice agencies, motor vehicle departments, the defendant’s family members, and the

defendant’s employer—can provide information about the defendant and can verify information provided in

interviews with defendants. If information cannot be verified, it should be clearly labeled as unverified in the

program’s report to the court.

• The pretrial services program should analyze the information it collects to assess the risks of nonappearance 

and dangerousness.The risk assessment provides a basis for formulating recommendations concerning conditions

of release and the use of available supervisory mechanisms.

Overview 

The heart of pretrial services program operations is the

collection, verification, and analysis of information about

defendants and available supervisory options. This chapter focuses on a set of interrelated questions about how

pretrial services programs obtain and convey information

relevant to the release/detention decision:

• What information is needed for the decision? In particular, what types of information should a pretrial services

program be expected to provide to a judicial officer?

• From what sources should pretrial services program 

staff seek to obtain information? What practical techniques can be used to help obtain the information?

• What information should be verified and how can this

be done?

• How should information about the defendant and possible release options be presented to the court? To what

extent should pretrial services programs make recommendations to the court?

• How is risk assessment conducted?

Information Needed 

While the judicial officer needs different types of information to make decisions concerning custody status and

to set conditions for released defendants, not all of the

information must be provided by a pretrial services program. Information about the nature and circumstances of

the charged offense, for example, should ordinarily be

provided by law enforcement agencies and prosecutors,

with an opportunity for defense lawyers to present their

positions when the facts are in dispute. Similarly, although

statutes often mandate that judicial officers consider the

weight of the evidence and likelihood of conviction in

resolving the release/detention issue, these are matters

that involve legal judgments about facts or allegations.

Presentation of information about these matters is appropriately left to prosecution and defense attorneys.

Information about a defendant’s identity, prior criminal

record, and any pending charges (including probation or

parole violations) is often gathered by law enforcement

and the prosecutor. However, this is an area in which pretrial services programs frequently play a valuable role.

Often, a pretrial services program’s own records will

contain relevant information that supplements what the

police and prosecutor can provide. In some jurisdictions,

the pretrial services program has primary responsibility
for conducting criminal history record checks and may

also review court records to see whether there are other

pending cases involving the same defendant. It is common for the program’s contacts with other agencies to

turn up highly relevant items of information.

Most of the other information needed for sound release/

detention decisionmaking—information about the defendant

and about possible options for release that will minimize

risks of nonappearance and pretrial crime—is best gathered

by pretrial services program personnel. Standards adopted

by the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies

(NAPSA) suggest that an independent investigating agency

collect the following information about defendants:

• Length of residence at past and present address.

• Family ties and relationships in the community.

• Employment status and history.

• Financial conditions and means of support.

• Physical and mental condition, including abuse of drugs

or alcohol.

• Identity of references who will verify information and 

assist the defendant in complying with conditions of 

release.

• Prior criminal record and history of delinquency.

• Prior record of failure to appear in court and compliance

with conditions of release.1

Some pretrial services programs collect supplementary

information in certain kinds of cases to help judges set

conditions that are appropriate for the circumstances of

the case. In Kentucky, for example, in every case in which

the defendant is charged with an offense involving violence

or threats of violence in a domestic relationship, staff of the

Kentucky Pretrial Services Agency complete an addendum

to the usual defendant interview form. The addendum

presents available information about the defendant’s relationship with the alleged victim, the existence of any current or past restraining order, and where the defendant

would live if released. In Monroe County, Florida, staff

of the pretrial release program routinely contact persons

identified as victims of an arrested person to learn their

views about releasing the defendant. For female defendants, some pretrial services programs ask questions that

address woman-specific issues such as pregnancy, child

care, and domestic violence to learn about services needed

and to help shape conditions of release (see “Obtaining

Information for Release/Detention Decisionmaking in

Domestic Violence Cases”).

In addition to having information about the defendant,

judicial officers often want to know what supervisory

options are available if they decide that the defendant

does not need to be held in jail. The issue commonly arises

in situations involving defendants who are homeless, defendants who have medical needs, and defendants who need

treatment for alcohol, drug abuse, or mental health problems. The issue also arises in cases involving charges of

domestic violence or other assault when the judicial officer

wants to be confident that no contact between the defendant and the complainant will occur (see “Contacting

Verification Sources Who Also May Be Victims”).

Some pretrial services programs have the capacity to

supervise some or all of these categories of defendants

directly. If the program cannot provide direct or primary

supervision itself, however, program staff are often aware

of other organizations or agencies that can do so. For

example, the report to a judge on a recently arrested person who is a drug addict could note that fact (and provide

information on drug test results, if available), but also let

the judge know of a drug treatment program that has an

available slot.

Conducting Defendant

Interviews 

Interviewing defendants is a basic function of every pretrial

services program. The defendants themselves are, at least

in the first instance, the primary sources of information

about themselves that can be relevant to the release/detention decision. However, a number of issues—and, with

respect to some of the issues, sharply conflicting views

among practitioners—exist with respect to when interviews should take place, who should be interviewed,

and where and how the interview should be conducted.

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

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C HAPTER 2: T ECHNIQUES P RETRIAL S ERVICES A GENCIES U S E

24

OBTAINING INFORMATION FOR RELEASE/DETENTION DECISIONMAKING

IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CASES

Cases involving charges of assault or battery committed by a person who lives with or is closely related to the

victim pose particular challenges for the courts and for pretrial services programs. As understanding of the pervasiveness and seriousness of domestic violence has increased in recent years, some pretrial services programs

have developed special procedures to obtain relevant information for judicial officers who must make decisions

about pretrial release or detention in these cases.The Kentucky Pretrial Services Agency, for example, has developed a special addendum to its standard defendant interview form for use only in cases in which charges involve

violence or threats of violence.The addendum includes questions designed to provide information to the judicial

officer about—

• Whether the defendant lives with (or has lived with) the alleged victim and, if so, for how long.

• The defendant’s relationship with the alleged victim, as described by the defendant.

• Whether the defendant believes the relationship will continue.

• Whether the defendant or the alleged victim has filed for divorce and, if so, when.

• Whether the defendant and the alleged victim have children in common.

• Whether the defendant drinks alcohol and, if so, how often.

• Whether the defendant thinks he or she has a substance abuse problem.

• Whether the defendant is currently going to counseling and, if so, what type of counseling, where, and how frequently.

• Whether the defendant is currently subject to a court order prohibiting contact with the alleged victim.

• Whether the defendant has previously had a restraining order filed against him or her.

• Whether the defendant has been charged with violating a restraining order any time in the past 2 years.

• If the defendant lives with the alleged victim, what alternative residence the defendant can use while the case 

is pending.a

In addition to interviewing the defendants in cases involving domestic violence, pretrial services programs can

use other sources to find information directly relevant to the judicial officer’s release/detention decision and the

framing of conditions governing release. State criminal history repositories and the National Crime Information

Center (NCIC) are especially important sources of information about defendants in cases involving domestic

violence. Besides maintaining criminal history information, NCIC also maintains a Protection Order File that can

be accessed to provide information about the existence and nature of any orders of protection or injunctions

against harassment that previously have been issued against the defendant. In a case involving charges of domestic

violence, the existence of previous or current protection orders against the defendant is highly relevant to the

judicial officer’s release/detention decision and the establishment of conditions of release.

a. Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts, Kentucky Pretrial Services Manual, Lexington, KY: Kentucky Administrative Office of the

Courts, 1998: 10–12.
Timing of the interview 

Optimally, defendants will be interviewed very shortly

after arrest to begin gathering data relevant to the

release/detention decision as quickly as possible. This

approach, which is followed by most pretrial services

programs, increases the likelihood that the court will

have essential background information at the time of 

the defendant’s first court appearance when the initial

release/detention decision is made.

Some programs, generally those with very limited staff

resources, do not conduct interviews until after the first

court appearance. This approach reduces the pool of

defendants to be interviewed because some arrestees (for

example, those who are able to post money bail and those

who are released on nonfinancial conditions by a judicial

officer acting without information provided by the program)

already will have been released by the time program staff

begin interviewing. One consequence of this approach is

that the early releases, whether made on money bail or

on nonfinancial conditions, are likely to have been made

without the judicial officer having adequate information

relevant to risk of flight or danger to the community and

without providing for the defendants’ supervision.

Who should be interviewed? 

Programs do not need to interview every newly arrested

person. Some individuals, for example, will have been

arrested on warrants issued by other jurisdictions or

arrested for violations of parole or violation of Federal

immigration matters. If the local court does not have

jurisdiction over the offense that gives rise to the arrest,

then an interview is not appropriate unless the court or

executive branch agency that has jurisdiction over the

case specifically requests one.

Also, some pretrial services programs exclude selected

defendants from the interview pool, based on the charge

against the defendant or knowledge that the defendant

has an extensive criminal record (see “Exclusionary

Policies”). Programs that follow this approach assume

there is little likelihood these defendants will be granted

nonfinancial release, regardless of the strength of their

community ties, and that it would be an inefficient use 

of limited project resources to interview them.

Other programs, following recommendations of the

NAPSA Standards, seek to interview all defendants over

which the court has jurisdiction. This approach has the

benefit of enabling the program to provide the court 

with relevant information in all cases, including ones in

which—even though the charge may be serious or the

defendant may have a lengthy record—there may be

some viable release options, such as supervised drug

treatment, required urine testing, or electronically monitored home confinement. Another benefit is that relevant

information on the defendant’s background, community

and family ties, and mental and physical condition can 

be gathered at an early stage. Depending on how it is 

disseminated, some of this information can be extremely

useful for a variety of purposes, such as jail classification,

assessment of the need for medical assistance or mental

competency exams, preparation of presentence 

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

25

CONTACTING VERIFICATION SOURCES WHO ALSO MAY BE VICTIMS

A difficult issue facing pretrial services programs in domestic violence cases is whether program staff members

should have any contact with the alleged victim and, if so, for what purposes and with what limitations.When the

defendant and the alleged victim live together, the latter often will be the most logical person to verify information

elicited in the defendant interview.Additionally, a domestic violence victim’s views about releasing the defendant

and about possible conditions of release (including the defendant’s living situation and the inclusion of orders of

protection) are highly relevant to the judicial officer’s decision. However, some pretrial practitioners feel that a

policy of contacting the alleged victim may undermine the program’s capacity to work effectively with defendants,

both in obtaining information in initial interviews and in subsequently monitoring compliance with conditions of

release. In jurisdictions that have a separate victim assistance program, that program can interview the alleged

victim and provide information directly to the court without the pretrial services program having to be in contact with both parties.
investigation reports, and formulation of nonincarcerative

dispositions involving treatment and supervision. (See

chapter 4, “Sharing Pretrial Services Information for Use

Beyond the Release/Detention Decision.”)

Location of the interview 

Interviews will be most productive and useful if conducted

in an atmosphere that encourages defendants to cooperate

with the interviewer. Whenever possible, interviews should

be conducted under circumstances in which custodial

officers, police officers, prosecutors, and other defendants

cannot hear or observe them. This is not always possible

and, indeed, it is not uncommon for interviews to be conducted in crowded jail facilities. Sometimes it may be

necessary (or desirable) to conduct interviews by telephone

or by video teleconference (see “Using Videoconferencing

for Defendant Interviews and Reports to the Court”).

Security for the interviewer is an important consideration

for inperson interviews. The interview should be conducted where there is no chance that the interviewer can

be taken hostage or otherwise placed in physical danger. 

Interview formats and protocols 

The extent to which information provided in a pretrial

services interview is treated as confidential—an issue

discussed in chapter 4—is important. An assurance that

information will be treated as confidential or can be used

only for purposes of the release/detention decision is

likely to increase the defendant’s cooperation, but agency

staff can offer such assurances only if they are certain

that the confidentiality or limited-use policy can be maintained (see “Cautions to Defendants Being Interviewed—

and to Interviewers”). Whether or not a jurisdiction provides confidentiality, advisement should, at a minimum—

• Establish the agency as a neutral third party.

• Clarify the role of the agency as an information gatherer,

provider of information to the court, and potential monitor

of postrelease behavior.

• Explain the purpose of the interview.

• Inform the defendant that the interview will include 

questions on living situation, family, employment, other

community ties, and prior criminal history, but will not

ask about the current charge.

• Explain the voluntary nature of the interview and

inform the defendant that he or she has a right to speak 

with an attorney before answering any questions and 

can refuse to answer any questions. 

C HAPTER 2: T ECHNIQUES P RETRIAL S ERVICES A GENCIES U S E

26

EXCLUSIONARY POLICIES

The 1989 national survey of pretrial release programs found that a high percentage of programs excluded some

defendants from the interview process. Overall, 63 percent of the State and local programs automatically excluded certain categories of defendants from being interviewed, solely on the basis of the charges against them.

Charge-related exclusions were mostly for charges of violent offenses, distribution or sale of drugs, and probation and parole violations. Additionally, many programs automatically excluded defendants charged with drunk

driving or with a record of prior failures to appear. The reasons given for the exclusionary policies include State

statutes, policies established by the local court, and program staff limitations.a

Commentary to the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies Standards cautions that “the offense

charged may have no effect on the likelihood of appearance in court or committing pretrial crime,” taking 

the position that “no person should be excluded from release consideration solely on the basis of the offense

charged.” As this commentary suggests, the effect of broad exclusionary policies is likely to mean the unnecessary detention of persons who are unable to make even a low money bail but who do not pose serious risks 

of flight or dangerousness.

a. Segebarth, K.L., Pretrial Services and Practices in the 1990s: Findings From the Enhanced Pretrial Service Project,Washington, DC: National

Association of Pretrial Services Agencies (NAPSA), 1991: 44–51.The survey, conducted in 1989, obtained responses from 201 State and local

pretrial services programs and 64 Federal programs.The report of survey findings is hereafter cited as NAPSA Survey Report.
• Explain how the interview information will be used.

• Inform the defendant of the potential negative consequences of giving false information.

A number of agencies provide defendants with a written

copy of the advisement, ask them to sign it, and file the

signed copy (see appendix F for examples of advisement

forms used in the U.S. District Court for the Southern

District of New York). 

In conducting the interview, program personnel typically

use standardized interview forms that enable them to 

collect essential information quickly. Sample interview

forms and related materials are provided in appendixes 

A (Kentucky), B (District of Columbia), and C (Harris

County, Texas). In some jurisdictions, interviewers 

use computers to record interview information. The

information then can be easily added to preprinted report

forms for presentation to the court and also can be easily

stored for future use.

Interviewing recently arrested defendants is not an appropriate assignment for someone who is untrained in interviewing techniques or who is easily provoked or distracted.

Working conditions are seldom ideal, and many defendants can be difficult to interview. Program administrators need to train staff to deal with defendants who may

be drunk or “high” on drugs, mentally or physically

impaired, or simply uncooperative. Some may not speak

English, and a bilingual staff member or an interpreter

may be needed. Program staff may use a number of techniques to conduct productive interviews (see “Conducting

Defendant Interviews: Practical Suggestions for Pretrial

Interviewers”).

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USING VIDEOCONFERENCING FOR DEFENDANT INTERVIEWS AND

REPORTS TO THE COURT

The rapid development of video technology makes it possible to conduct interviews of newly arrested defendants very shortly after arrest, even though the arrestee may be in a distant location.This is a particular advantage in rural areas, where low case volume may make it difficult to maintain full-time staff to conduct interviews

and provide other pretrial services.The technology can also be used in large urban areas, however, where newly

arrested persons are held in separate police lockups.

In the Sixth Judicial District of Virginia, videoconferencing is used to conduct interviews of newly arrested defendants in a three-county area that covers approximately 1,400 square miles.The video equipment is located in

each of the three jails in the district and in the office of Southside Community Corrections and Pretrial Services,

located in the town of Emporia. A single pretrial services officer conducts interviews with defendants in each jail

beginning at 6 a.m. After the information is verified (usually by phone), the officer faxes a report and recommendations to the clerk of each court in which there will be an initial appearance calendar.The courtrooms in each

county are also part of the videoconferencing network, so the pretrial officer can also be available by video to

answer questions or to provide additional information the judicial officer requests.

A similar approach is used in Monroe County, Florida, for persons arrested over the weekend in the Middle and

Upper Keys. Interviews and initial arraignments are conducted by video; the pretrial services officer is based in

the program’s office in Key West.

The use of videoconferences as a mechanism for conducting interviews is not limited to rural areas. As noted 

in chapter 1, Philadelphia’s pretrial services program now conducts about 60 percent of its interviews by video.

Program administrators expect to be doing all or virtually all of the interviews via video in the near future.

Whether video interviewing is done in a rural or urban area, the ground rules for conducting the interview 

are basically the same as for conducting inperson interviews. It should be made clear to the defendant that the

interview is voluntary and that the results will be used to help the judicial officer make decisions concerning 

pretrial detention or release. Furthermore, the interview should be conducted in a secure, private setting.
Obtaining Information From

Other Sources 

Often, a pretrial services program will have information

about a defendant in its own records because of prior

arrests, interviews, and supervised release in the same

jurisdiction. Additionally, depending on the time and

resources available for the investigation, pretrial services

staff may use the following resources either as primary

sources of information about defendants or as a means to

verify defendant-supplied information.

Arresting agents or officers have information regarding

the charge, circumstances of the arrest, and the defendant’s criminal record. Many law enforcement agencies

record limited personal information about the defendant,

such as date of birth, address, employment, and substance

abuse history.

Criminal record retrieval systems include the FBI’s

National Criminal Information Center (NCIC), the

National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System,

and State criminal history repositories. The State repositories, generally organized as a branch of the State police

or State bureau of investigation, are primary sources of

criminal records. These systems may also provide prior

addresses, aliases, names of probation or parole officers,

and motor vehicle information. To access these systems,

agencies must secure appropriate authorization.

Probation, community corrections, and parole agencies

can provide personal information, criminal history, and

record of compliance with supervision (including court

appearances, violations, and pending charges) if a defendant has been on probation or parole. To facilitate access

to this information, pretrial services program administrators need to develop ongoing information-exchange relationships with these agencies.

Correctional institutions have information such as dates

of incarceration and the existence of detainers filed

against defendants. Pretrial agencies need to advise the

court promptly of any detainers because this status may

preclude releasing a defendant. 

Motor vehicle departments can supply information about

driving violations and records of traffic court appearances.

Their records also often contain descriptions of defendants

and addresses for verifying information provided by the

defendant.

County court records relating to marital status, child support,

and property ownership may prove useful in assessing

family and community ties.

Credit bureaus, for a fee, will provide employment, residential, and financial data about individual defendants.

However, since a defendant must sign a release form

before these records are requested, credit bureau records

cannot usually be accessed in time for the initial appearance.

Family members can often provide documents—including

lease agreements, pay stubs, utility bills, or passports—

that are evidence of a defendant’s community ties and

employment status.

Employers are the most reliable source of information

regarding a defendant’s current work status. However,

some defendants may be reluctant to have their employer

contacted because they fear that information about their

arrest will get them fired. Most pretrial services programs

respect this concern and seek to verify a defendant’s

C HAPTER 2: T ECHNIQUES P RETRIAL S ERVICES A GENCIES U S E

28

CAUTIONS TO DEFENDANTS BEING INTERVIEWED—AND TO INTERVIEWERS

District of Columbia pretrial officers are trained to tell defendants that a judicial officer will use the information

they provide to decide whether to release them. Officers also inform defendants that the interview is voluntary

and that the information will not be used later to prove the defendant guilty. Interviewers are cautioned—

• Not to discuss the charge.

• Not to develop any kind of relationship with the defendant beyond the interview’s purpose.

• To complete a disclosure form if the interviewer knows the defendant.
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29

CONDUCTING DEFENDANT INTERVIEWS: PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

FOR PRETRIAL INTERVIEWERS

A number of pretrial services programs have prepared manuals or guidelines designed to help staff members

conduct effective interviews. Suggested interview techniques include the following:

• Maintain control of the interview, but do not intimidate or bully the defendant. More information 

is obtained at this stage by a friendly interviewer, especially in jurisdictions where defendants can opt out of the 

pretrial services interview. If the defendant is truly uncooperative, come back after he or she has cooled down.

• Be prepared to clarify standard interview questions by rephrasing. Even where an interpreter is not 

required, many defendants have had less education than the average person. Many are unfamiliar with the 

stylized language of the criminal justice process. Interviewers need to adapt standard questions to get through to 

defendants.

• Do not permit the defendant to sidetrack the interview by providing irrelevant information.

Experienced interviewers can help new staff hone their skills in directing the conversation toward obtaining 

needed information. Remind defendants that the purpose of the interview is to provide the court with 

information that may support their release.

• Do not provide legal advice. Even if defendants are aware that the interviewer is not a lawyer, they may 

assume that, since the interviewer works in the justice system, he or she is a good source of either legal 

advice or inside information on how the system actually works. For example, a defendant might ask whether 

the judge is a lenient or harsh sentencer or whether the interviewer thinks a plea to a lesser charge would 

result in a specific sentence. Interviewers need to say that these are questions they cannot answer and instruct 

defendants to discuss these matters with their lawyers.

• Do not recommend an attorney or comment on the qualifications of specific attorneys.

Recommending an attorney compromises the professional stature and independence of the agency.

Furthermore, commenting on attorney qualifications is unprofessional and is likely to lead to severe criticism 

of the interviewer.

• Do not discuss information about the offense charged. This is a subject for discussion between the 

defendant and counsel, or for the police or prosecutor to address.

• Do not argue with the defendant. If a defendant appears to be providing contradictory answers or to be

omitting essential details, the interviewer can confront the defendant about the discrepancies or omissions but 

should do so professionally.

• Do not complete answers for defendants who hesitate on specific questions. Suggesting responses 

diminishes the likelihood of obtaining reliable information in a situation that already may motivate some 

defendants to fabricate.
reported employment status without disclosing the arrest

to the employer. Telephone directories and professional

licensing agencies can corroborate a defendant’s claim 

of self-employment.

Given the time constraints associated with preparing 

pretrial services reports and recommendations, it may 

not be possible to secure a defendant’s written release for

obtaining information from third parties. However, pretrial services agencies that participate in detention reviews

and postrelease supervision of defendants should consider developing a release-of-information form to facilitate

information gathering from hospitals, clinics, past

employers, or other entities.

Verification 

Verification of information provided by defendants is 

an integral part of pretrial services program operations.

Indeed, many pretrial services practitioners believe that

verifying defendant information is the most important

function their programs perform.

The extent of verification may vary depending on the

seriousness of the charge and the nature of the information (see “Verification Strategies and Techniques”). As a

top priority, agencies need to verify information about the

defendant’s identity and about places where he or she can be

contacted if released (e.g., addresses and phone numbers).

Information that cannot be verified by the time it is presented to a judicial officer should be labeled as unverified.

Most verification is provided by family members or personal references. However, defendants may request that

employers and other specific individuals not be contacted.

Because defendants are presumed innocent and contacting

specific individuals may cause them harm (e.g., loss of a

job), pretrial services personnel need to exercise caution

in deciding which individuals should be contacted and

how they should be approached.

In selecting the individuals to be contacted, agency personnel should consider the relative importance of the verification source, the potential damage to the defendant’s

livelihood or personal relationships if the person learns

about the defendant’s arrest, and possible danger to third

parties. Staff should use the least intrusive methods necessary to obtain and corroborate relevant information.

Most programs seek to verify information provided by

the defendant from at least one independent source, and

some require two sources. The most common method of

verification is telephone contact with an employer, friend,

spouse, or other relative. Sometimes, however, a defendant

cannot supply phone numbers for any references, and often

it is impossible to contact a reference even when a phone

number is given. Programs sometimes use field investigators

to contact references who cannot be reached by phone. 

Because the defendant’s first court appearance ordinarily

takes place within 48 hours after arrest (and sometimes

considerably sooner), obtaining verification before this

first appearance can be difficult. Some programs will not

present unverified information. Others will present the

information, noting that it has not been verified. The latter approach enables judicial officers to consider possible

options and, if appropriate, to order release subject to

verification of information provided by the defendant.

No matter what action is taken with respect to release 

or detention at the defendant’s first appearance before a

judicial officer, there are often good reasons to initiate 

or continue the verification process. For example, if a

defendant has substance abuse or mental health problems,

pretrial services program personnel may need to talk with

previous treatment providers to design (or refine) an appropriate supervision plan. Followup verification can lead to

release of some defendants who would otherwise remain

in jail throughout the pretrial period. It can also strengthen a program’s supervision capability and add to its credibility with the court and other organizations involved in

the criminal justice process.

Verification of information can be particularly important

in the case of defendants who are not released at the initial appearance. A number of jurisdictions have assigned

pretrial services programs responsibility for reviewing the

status of defendants after they are detained or unable to

make bail at the initial hearing. Courts will often review

the cases of defendants in this situation, but judicial officers

typically want to be able to consider verified information

about the defendant’s background and community and family ties before reducing the defendant’s bail, altering the

conditions of release, or rescinding an initial detention order.

C HAPTER 2: T ECHNIQUES P RETRIAL S ERVICES A GENCIES U S E

30
Analyzing the Information:

Approaches to Risk Assessment 

Once information has been collected, it must be analyzed

for use in the release/detention decision. Some pretrial

services programs simply convey information about

defendants to the judicial officer responsible for the decision, but most analyze the data and use it as a basis for

recommendations. The analysis process—risk assessment

or risk classification—is a key step in both the court’s

release/detention decisionmaking process and, if the decision is to release the defendant, the management of the

risks of nonappearance and pretrial crime.

Risk assessments seek to take account of factors identified through the defendant interview, the verification

process, and information acquired from other sources.

Subjective risk assessments are based on program staff

members’ consideration of the relative weight to be given

to different factors. Objective risk assessments use instruments such as point scales or pretrial release guidelines

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VERIFICATION STRATEGIES AND TECHNIQUES

In a 1996 Program Training Supplement, the Pretrial Services Resource Center (PSRC) provides useful guidance for

pretrial services program staff involved in interviewing defendants and verifying information.a PSRC emphasizes

that pretrial services agencies should attempt to verify at least the following information:

• Address.

• Length of residence in a particular county or city.

• Means of support and education.

• Drug or alcohol use and substance abuse treatment history.

PSRC has a number of useful suggestions for verifying this information:

• After completing the interview, pretrial staff should obtain from the defendant the names of potential references, each reference’s relationship to the defendant, and a telephone number where each reference can 

be reached.

• At a minimum, pretrial staff should try to obtain at least three reference sources, each with a different phone 

number.

• Staff should be particularly mindful to verify information that is directly related to a recommendation for release.

For example, if the program is considering recommending release contingent on the defendant living at a certain residence, staff must determine whether the placement is acceptable to the owner of the residence.

• The verifying source should be advised of the identity of the agency, the identity of the staff member placing the

call, and the identity of the defendant who has provided the source’s name to verify information that may affect

the court’s decision concerning release.

• The verifying source should be told that participation is voluntary.

• Every effort should be made to avoid leading the verifying source and thus to ensure independent responses.

Verbatim quotes may be appropriate.

a. Kennedy, S., D.A. Henry, J. Clark, and J. Juszkiewicz, Pretrial Issues: Pretrial Release and Supervision Program Training Supplement,Washington, DC:

Pretrial Services Resource Center, 1996: 23–26.
that assign weights to variables such as nature and seriousness of the current charge, seriousness of prior record,

employment status, housing situation, family ties, and the

existence and nature of mental health or substance abuse

problems. (The point scale used in Monroe County, New

York, is provided in appendix D, and the Pretrial Release

Guidelines Matrix and the Risk Classification Worksheet

used in Philadelphia are provided in appendix E.)

All three principal sets of national standards in the pretrial

release field favor the use of objective criteria, principally

on the grounds that they are fairer and more consistent.

Thus, for example, the commentary to the NAPSA

Standard on evaluating the nature and degree of risk

posed by release of a defendant maintains that use of

objective criteria is “the only way to remove arbitrariness

and approach equal treatment for all defendants.”2

In practice, pretrial services programs approach the risk

assessment process in several different ways. The most

recent available data, from the 1989 survey conducted by

the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies,

indicate that among State and local programs—

• About 25 percent use an objective system (point scale,

• risk matrix, or pretrial release guidelines).

• Another 25 percent use a subjective system only.

• About 40 percent use some combination of an objective

• system plus subjective input from program staff members.

• Fewer than 10 percent of the programs provide back-

• ground information only, with no attempt to assess risk.3

In the Federal system, all pretrial services programs make

some kind of risk assessment, but almost 69 percent of

the Federal programs surveyed in 1989 relied exclusively

on subjective risk assessments.

Risk assessments are designed to give judicial officers

information—and, in most instances, recommendations

or options—that they can use in making the release/

detention decision and setting appropriate conditions. Using

the available information, pretrial services programs assess

the risk that a defendant will fail to appear for scheduled

court dates and consider what release conditions could minimize that risk. In many jurisdictions, programs also seek

to assess dangerousness and consider what conditions could

be imposed that would minimize the risk to public safety.

The pretrial release guidelines approach, now most fully

developed in Philadelphia, goes an important step beyond

simply providing information to the judicial officer responsible for the release/detention decision. It provides essential information, but it does so in a format that structures

the judicial officer’s exercise of discretion, suggesting a

specific option (or range of options) thought to be appropriate for defendants who fall within a particular category

on the guidelines matrix. The guidelines matrix used in

the new Philadelphia program (see appendix E) has two

primary dimensions: charge severity, divided into 10 categories from least to most serious; and predicted risk 

of misconduct—that is, failure to appear (FTA) or 

rearrest—derived from empirical analysis of factors that

include community and family ties, employment, education, prior record, and treatment needs. The predicted risk

dimension is divided into 4 levels, and the matrix thus

has a total of 40 cells or categories of defendants. Each

category has a distinct combination of charge severity

and predicted risk of misconduct, and each has a presumptive option (or range of options) concerning release

conditions.

The presumptive options for each category are set by 

a court policy group based on two types of inputs: (1)

analysis of data showing what actually was done, and

with what outcomes in terms of variables such as FTA

and rearrest, in prior court cases that involved defendants

with similar charges and risk factors; and (2) the considered judgments of members of the court policy group

concerning what should be done in each category of

cases, taking account of both the results of past practices

and any goals with respect to the systemic impacts of the

totality of release/detention decisions in the jurisdiction

(see “Implementing Pretrial Release Guidelines:

Philadelphia’s Experience”).

Providing Information and

Recommendations to the Court 

All pretrial services programs provide background information to the court on defendants they have interviewed,

and most also make recommendations concerning conditions that could be imposed to help minimize risks of

flight and dangerousness.

C HAPTER 2: T ECHNIQUES P RETRIAL S ERVICES A GENCIES U S E

32
Reports to the court vary widely in format and mode of

presentation. In some jurisdictions, a very detailed written narrative is prepared, but in most courts a fairly simple short form report is used. Typically, the report will

include a summary or outline of the basic information 

the program has obtained from the defendant and other

sources, with brief notes about factors that program staff

want to bring to the court’s attention. The recommendations section of the report, if there is one, may also 

suggest conditions of release that will help minimize the

risks that have been identified. For example, if the defendant has a history of drug or alcohol abuse, the program

might recommend periodic drug testing plus participation

in a substance abuse treatment program. If the offense

charged involves domestic violence, the program might

recommend that release be conditioned on the defendant’s having no contact with the complainant while the

case is pending.

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IMPLEMENTING PRETRIAL RELEASE GUIDELINES:

PHILADELPHIA’S EXPERIENCE

The pretrial release guidelines used in Philadelphia are not meant to be straitjackets. Bail commissioners and

judges are free to depart from them in making release/detention decisions in specific cases, but they are expected to follow the guidelines in the great majority of cases.This has, in fact, happened in Philadelphia, where the

guidelines approach implemented in 1995 was designed primarily to maintain a level of release at least as high as

the level required by the emergency procedures put in place by a Federal court in 1987, while greatly reducing

the high FTA and rearrest rates that had been associated with the emergency procedures.The commissioners

charged with release/detention decisionmaking in the Philadelphia Municipal Court followed the presumptive

option in more than 60 percent of the cases during the first year of implementation. One result of the new

approach was a sharp reduction in the FTA rate, from nearly 50 percent under the federally imposed emergency

procedures to approximately 25 percent during the first year of the new program. At the same time, the system

was able to maintain the jail population at a stable level.a

A major advantage of the guidelines approach is that it enables analysis of pretrial release outcomes by category

of defendant, so that policymakers and practitioners can learn the results of specific approaches for handling

defendants with particular charge and risk characteristics.The resulting feedback enables the policy group to

adjust the guidelines if necessary, focusing on how to address issues posed by defendants in one or a few of the

40 categories.The feedback may also suggest changes in operational policies, such as the timing or nature of 

specific supervisory activities. In Philadelphia, for example, researchers found that defendants who appeared at a 

pretrial services orientation meeting scheduled a few days after release date were far more likely to appear for

scheduled court dates than those who did not.The finding suggests the importance of the orientation meeting

and also points to a possible need to revise operating procedures for identifiable categories of defendants who

tend to skip this meeting.b

A key feature of the guidelines approach in Philadelphia has been the close collaboration between researchers

and criminal justice policymakers.The court policy group has applied research findings in developing the guidelines matrix and in shaping the release and supervision options available for defendants who fall into each category

on the matrix. Because the recommendations for each defendant reflect the considered judgments of experienced judges and other practitioners as to how to deal with similar cases, they have a high degree of acceptance

by judicial officers responsible for the release/detention decision.

a. Goldkamp, J.S., M.K. Harris, and M.White, Pretrial Release and Detention During the First Year of Pretrial Release Guidelines in Philadelphia—

Review and Recommendations, Philadelphia: Crime and Justice Research Institute, 1997: 7–18.

b. Ibid., 25–27.
In both examples, the pretrial services program also may

be able to suggest specific options. Drug court may be a

possibility for the substance abuser, or there may be an

outpatient or residential substance abuse treatment program with an available slot. For the defendant charged

with domestic violence, program staff can verify the existence of an alternative residence and perhaps arrange for

use of an electronic surveillance device that will help

ensure that the “stay away” condition is met.

Although the NAPSA Standards call for a representative

of the pretrial services program to be available at the time

the initial release/detention decision is made by a judicial

officer, data from NAPSA’s 1989 survey indicate that this

occurs in only about 60 percent of the State and local

jurisdictions that have pretrial programs.4 Those who advocate the presence of an agency representative in court point

to three functions that the staff member can perform:

• Present the information and recommendation(s) to the 

• court.

• Respond to any recommendations or questions about 

• the information asked by the court, prosecutor, or 

• defense counsel.

• Once the release/detention decision is made, explain 

• any conditions of release and sanctions for noncompli-

• ance to the defendant and ensure that the defendant 

• knows of the next court date and other requirements.

When a program representative is not present in court,

the reason is generally lack of staff or scheduling conflicts, but sometimes this is a conscious policy choice on

the part of the program. Programs that use an objective

risk assessment scheme (e.g., a point scale or pretrial

release guidelines) often feel that the objective data are

sufficient, and these programs are less likely to have a

representative in court than programs that rely on subjective risk assessments or some combination of objective

and subjective approaches.

Supporters of pretrial services programs disagree on the

advisability of making specific recommendations to the

court. The NAPSA Standards support recommendations,

and, in fact, in the 1989 NAPSA survey more than 70 percent of the State and local programs and 95 percent of the

Federal programs routinely made recommendations concerning defendants they had interviewed.5 Another 20

percent of the State and local programs and 5 percent 

of the Federal programs made recommendations when

asked to do so by the court in specific cases.

Critics of the practice argue that making recommendations

amounts to advocacy concerning release or detention, and

that advocacy should be left to the prosecutor and defense

counsel. Critics also note that some types of information

that are relevant to the release/detention decision—

including information about the circumstances of the

offense, the weight of the evidence, and the likelihood of

conviction—are generally not available to pretrial services

program personnel, resulting in recommendations based

on incomplete information. The more appropriate role for

the program, they maintain, is simply to provide information about the defendant and about possible release options,

organized in a fashion that will help the judicial officer

make a sound decision. This approach would not preclude

pretrial services programs from analyzing the available

information, but it would more clearly separate the program’s information-gathering and analysis functions from

the judicial decisionmaking process that provides for

input from prosecution and defense. 

Proponents of recommendations maintain that they are a

logical extension of the risk assessment process. Presenting

recommendations, they note, simply informs the court of

how the risks of flight and pretrial crime can be minimized

if the defendant is released and indicates whether—on

the basis of information known to the program—the risks

are manageable. Proponents recognize that there may be

other information, not available to the pretrial services

program, that can affect the decision. It is also possible to

develop recommendations that are based on analysis of both

the types of information typically collected by pretrial

services agencies and the information ordinarily presented

by prosecutors. That is the approach taken in the pretrial

release guidelines system used in Philadelphia, where the

guidelines matrix score reflects both the seriousness of

the offense and the predicted risk of flight or pretrial crime.

C HAPTER 2: T ECHNIQUES P RETRIAL S ERVICES A GENCIES U S E

34
Notes

1. National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies

(NAPSA), Performance Standards and Goals for Pretrial

Release, Standard III, Washington, DC: NAPSA, 1978. 

2. Ibid., commentary to Standard XI.

3. NAPSA Survey Report, 72–76.

4. Ibid., 88–89. 

5. Ibid., 67–68.

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

35
Chapter 3

Pretrial Supervision Strategies: 

Risk Management for Released Defendants

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

37

KEY POINTS

• Defendants on pretrial release pose two main types of risks: nonappearance for scheduled court dates and 

commission of pretrial crime. Pretrial services programs, working with the courts and other justice system 

agencies, can help manage and minimize these risks.

• The reasons for nonappearance vary widely, but the majority of defendants who fail to appear will return to 

court once contacted.

• Pretrial services programs use three main approaches to manage the risk that some defendants may fail to 

appear for scheduled court events:

— Gathering information relevant to assessing the risk of nonappearance and initiating followup action if a 

— court date is missed.

— Using monitoring and reminder techniques to try to anticipate and avoid nonappearance.

— Immediately contacting a defendant who misses a court appearance to resolve the problem and minimize

— disruption of the court process.

• Pretrial services programs manage the risks to public safety by doing the following:

— Monitoring released defendants’ compliance with conditions designed to minimize the risk of pretrial crime.

— Providing direct “intensive” supervision of some categories of defendants.

— Responding promptly to information indicating a defendant has violated conditions imposed by the court.

• Conditions of release should be related to the type of risk posed by the released defendant. Examples of types 

of conditions used include the following:

— Requirements for phone or inperson check-ins with the pretrial services program.

— Restrictions on a defendant’s movements, including curfews,“stay away” orders, and electronic monitoring

— and house arrest.

— Testing and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse.

(continued)
This chapter focuses on ways in which pretrial services

programs, working closely with the courts they serve and

with other justice system agencies, can help to manage and

minimize the two key risks—nonappearance and dangerousness—that are of greatest concern to policymakers in

developing pretrial release policies and practices.

The risks that defendants will fail to appear in court, intimidate victims or other witnesses, or commit crimes while

on release vary across a broad spectrum of probability.

Most defendants fall somewhere in the middle of the risk

spectrum: While they are not appropriate candidates for

completely unrestricted release, neither are they so dangerous (or so likely to flee the jurisdiction) that they need to

be jailed prior to trial. The challenge for pretrial services—

indeed, for the entire criminal justice community, especially the judges and other judicial officers who are ultimately

responsible for the release/detention decision—is to find

risk management strategies and techniques that will be

effective for these middle-ground defendants and thereby

minimize the use of pretrial incarceration.

Managing the Risk of

Nonappearance

Pretrial services programs manage the risk that some

defendants will fail to appear for scheduled court events

in three main ways:

• Gathering and periodically updating information relevant

to assessing the risk of nonappearance and initiating 

followup action if necessary.

• Using a variety of monitoring and reminder techniques 

to try to anticipate and avoid possible nonappearance 

problems.

• Immediately contacting a defendant who misses an 

appearance to resolve the problem and minimize 

disruption of the court process.

Information:The foundation for managing

risk of flight

When released defendants miss a court appearance, it is

often not because they are fleeing from prosecution but,

rather, for other reasons ranging from genuine lack of

knowledge about the scheduled date to forgetfulness (see

“And Then the Dog Ate My Subpoena”). Nevertheless, the

missed appearance disrupts the court’s schedule, delays

the case, inconveniences victims and other witnesses, and

wastes valuable time. Many of the problems caused by

defendants failing to appear can be minimized by improving communication between the court and the defendant,

with pretrial services playing a key role in the process

(see “Minimizing Failures to Appear”). 

The foundation for good communication is the information the pretrial services program staff gathers—especially

information about the names, addresses, and phone numbers

of the defendant, the defendant’s spouse and other family

members, and the defendant’s employer. Once a defendant

is placed on pretrial release, this basic information is supplemented by information related to the following:

• The defendant’s compliance with requirements for phone

and inperson check-ins with the pretrial services program.

C HAPTER 3: P RETRIAL S UPERVISION S TRATEGIES

38

KEY POINTS, CONTINUED

• Defendants with substance abuse and mental health problems make up a significant proportion of court caseloads and jail population.The key roles that pretrial services programs can play in developing innovative programs

to deal effectively with these persons include the following:

— Obtaining essential information about their substance abuse and mental health problems.

— Assessing the nature and extent of the risks of flight and dangerousness posed by these defendants, taking

— into account the defendants’ substance abuse and mental health needs and the clinical and programmatic 

— resources that can be used to help address the needs if the defendant is released.

— Monitoring the defendants’ compliance with any conditions of release.

— Coordinating the provision of treatment and other services to these defendants.
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“AND THEN THE DOG ATE MY SUBPOENA”

In 1995, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel chronicled excuses defendants offered for not appearing for scheduled

court events:

The hard-working staff in Milwaukee County’s intake court has heard nearly every possible excuse [to

explain] why people missed court dates and had to be dragged in on a warrant. Last month they decided to

start keeping track of them.The no. 1 reason: 33 people said illness prevented them from coming to court.

That was followed by “I was in jail” (22 people);“I forgot” (20);“I did not know when to come back” (20);

“I was here” (18);“I don’t know” (17);“I had a death in the family” (16); and “I was working” (14). Five people were afraid to go to jail; three were in drug treatment; two said a family member had been kidnapped;

two said they were drinking or on drugs; two had a fire in their house. And one, believe it or not, gave this

refreshing answer:“I accept full responsibility for not showing and have no excuse.”

MINIMIZING FAILURES TO APPEAR

Rob Schwab, assistant administrator of the Pretrial Services Program in San Mateo, California, has examined 

failure-to-appear (FTA) rates and ways to reduce them:

[D]efendants fail to appear in court for many reasons.While some defendants willfully fail to appear, for most

people the reasons are more complicated.A defendant may have lost the paperwork on the current case 

and have either forgotten s/he must appear or not know whom to contact to find out where and when to

appear. Many defendants do not understand what they are supposed to do or fully comprehend the seriousness of the charges against them and the penalties for missing court. Many defendants are afraid of the criminal justice system and are too fearful to ask simple questions. Many wrongfully equate a citation to appear on

a misdemeanor as the functional equivalent of a parking citation. Other defendants think they have a valid

excuse because they must work or have child care or transportation difficulties.

When the San Mateo program realized that it had several categories of defendants with unacceptably high FTA

rates, it initiated some simple notification and reminder procedures.The procedures led to immediate and 

dramatic improvements. According to program director Roman Duranczyk:

Our research, and research in other jurisdictions, shows that many failures to appear can be averted by

reminding the defendants of their upcoming court appointments. Under the O.R. [Own Recognizance]

Program court notification system, defendants receive reminders by phone and letter before every court

appearance.The result has been a significant decrease in the failure to appear rate and subsequent incarceration of defendants on bench warrants.We have had a positive effect on both defendants and the criminal 

justice system by explaining to these individuals how the system works, answering their questions, and

explaining the importance of coming to court.

• The defendant’s compliance with other conditions of 

release, such as providing urine samples for drug tests,

participating in a drug or alcohol treatment program,

and obeying a curfew.

• Upcoming court dates for the defendant. 

• The defendant’s appearance record for scheduled 

court dates.

Monitoring and reminder strategies

The check-in procedures used by many pretrial services

programs provide opportunities for program staff to remind
defendants of upcoming court dates and tell them where

to go at the courthouse. During a check-in call or visit 

to the program’s office, program staff can inquire about

changes in address or employment and obtain updated

information regarding where and how to contact the

defendant. The check-ins also help defendants realize

that the court is serious about expecting them to appear

when scheduled. Practitioners note that defendants are

quick to perceive how a system really operates—whether

a system is too overworked to care if certain “nonserious”

defendants show up or, conversely, whether it has the

determination to stay in contact with defendants, enforce

its orders, and maintain its schedules.

Comprehensive pretrial services programs take advantage

of each and every contact with defendants to remind them

of their obligations and update the program’s own information base. In the District of Columbia, for example,

defendants reporting for drug testing are also reminded of

their upcoming court dates and other release conditions.

Their current addresses are routinely double-checked to

ensure accuracy or to discover changes. Defendants

responding to telephone curfew checks are also reminded

of their court dates and asked the same questions regarding the addresses and phone numbers where they can be

contacted. If the defendant does abscond, the documented

evidence of multiple reminders can be used in subsequent

“bail jumping” prosecutions, further reinforcing the

accountability the public expects.

Followup on no-shows

As any dental office receptionist can attest, some people

do not appear for appointments regardless of reminders.

Pretrial services programs that have established specialized failure-to-appear units universally report that most

wayward defendants are not “on the lam” but, rather, can

be quickly reached at home or at work.

Once contacted, defendants—even those with outstanding

bench warrants—often can be persuaded that their best

option is to turn themselves in before they are arrested.

Of course, judges whose calendars have been disrupted

because a defendant fails to show up are entitled to an

explanation. Pretrial services agencies, in their role as

neutral gatherers of information, can be helpful in investigating the circumstances of the no-show and verifying

any explanation of the behavior. Sometimes staff can corroborate an excuse directly from the agency’s existing

records—for example, finding out whether a data entry

mistake was made while recording the next court date.

Regardless of whether an excuse is valid, program staff

personnel can also provide information regarding the

defendant’s willingness to come to court once contacted

about a failure to appear. 

Managing Risks to Public Safety

The possibility that a released defendant will commit a

crime—especially a violent offense—is undoubtedly the

risk of greatest concern to the judicial officer who must

make the release/detention decision, to other justice system

practitioners, and to the general public. Since the accuracy

of no risk assessment instrument or approach is even close

to 100 percent, any jurisdiction that releases a significant

number of defendants during the pretrial period must seek

to manage the risk that such release poses to public safety

(see “Using Research to Help Develop Knowledge and

Shape Pretrial Release Supervision Policy and Practice”).

A pretrial services program’s capacity for direct supervision of released defendants is often limited by both

lack of law enforcement powers and lack of resources.

Nevertheless, the program can play an important role in

managing the risk to public safety by—

• Monitoring released defendants’ compliance with courtimposed conditions that are designed to minimize the

risk of pretrial crime.

• Providing direct “intensive” supervision of some 

categories of defendants.

• Responding promptly to violations of conditions of

release.

Monitoring conditions of release 

Judicial officers can establish a wide variety of conditions

of release, only some of which are within the capacity of a

pretrial services program to monitor. Examples of release

conditions that pretrial programs have been asked to monitor include restrictions on movement, “stay away” conditions, curfews, and house arrest and electronic monitoring.

C HAPTER 3: P RETRIAL S UPERVISION S TRATEGIES

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P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

41

USING RESEARCH TO HELP DEVELOP KNOWLEDGE AND SHAPE PRETRIAL

RELEASE SUPERVISION POLICY AND PRACTICE

As Philadelphia has undertaken major reforms in its pretrial release practices, including initiation of new pretrial

release guidelines, researchers at the Crime and Justice Research Institute have worked with policymakers to

mount a series of experiments designed to learn more about how to minimize failure to appear and pretrial

crime on the part of released defendants. In a 1998 report analyzing the results of four control-group experiments that focused on alternative notification and supervision practices, the researchers drew two main conclusions: (1) it is critically important for supervisory staff to have an effective means of reaching defendants directly

to notify them of upcoming court dates and to respond to noncompliance with conditions of release; and (2) it

is essential to have a system that employs meaningful consequences, imposed quickly when violations occur or

when defendants fail to comply with conditions. Most of the needed responses, they noted, do not have to

include confinement, but there probably does need to be some capacity to use confinement selectively.a

Reflecting on the lessons learned through these experiments, plus their understanding of the context in which

pretrial release takes place in Philadelphia, the researchers suggested that the following combination of elements

is likely to be most effective in reducing misconduct on the part of released defendants:

• Effective risk assessment to identify defendants who, on the basis of analysis of previous cases, appear to be at 

greatest risk of misconduct. (In Philadelphia, the risk assessment is an integral part of the pretrial release guidelines process.)

• Implementation of a comparatively simple supervision regimen, with achievable conditions, very accurate information (including reliable information on how to contact the defendant directly), and vigilant monitoring by staff.

• Procedures to ensure that defendants attend the first stage of the pretrial release orientation process (at

which conditions and expectations are explained by program staff and contact information is confirmed),

using transportation provided by the police if necessary.

• Rapid followup on instances of noncompliance, including use of a range of different types of consequences.

• Use of drug treatment as an integral part of pretrial release for defendants with substance abuse problems.

• Development of partnerships with other entities involved in initiatives focused on community crime 

problems—including the police, probation, and community organizations—to enhance the prospects for 

effective community-based supervision.b

a. Goldkamp, J.S., and M.D.White, Restoring Accountability in Pretrial Release:The Philadelphia Pretrial Release Supervision Experiments, Philadelphia:

Crime and Justice Research Institute, 1998: 154–157.

b. Ibid., 159–160.
Restrictions on movement usually require a defendant to

live in a designated area and to stay away from certain

neighborhoods or high-crime areas. For example, the U.S.

Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Oregon supervises a number of defendants charged with gang-related

crimes who, as a condition of release, are barred from the

neighborhoods of rival gangs. 

Stay-away conditions are typically imposed in domestic

violence cases or cases in which the defendant is ordered

to avoid the alleged victim of the crime and any witnesses. In Tucson, Arizona, the Pima County Pretrial Services

Agency not only monitors defendants’ compliance with

such conditions but also helps find alternative housing for

defendants who must vacate their own homes as a condition of release. In Cincinnati, Ohio, the Hamilton County

Department of Pretrial Services uses a monitoring device

that is placed within an electronic bracelet. If the defendant approaches a residence that he or she is supposed to

stay away from, an electronic receiver in the home warns

the alleged victim and signals a monitoring station that

alerts the local police.

C HAPTER 3: P RETRIAL S UPERVISION S TRATEGIES

42

USING DRUG TESTING AS A TOOL FOR RISK ASSESSMENT AND

RISK MANAGEMENT

In 1984, with initial funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the District of Columbia Pretrial Services

Agency started a pilot program to conduct drug testing of defendants.The program had two purposes:

• To provide better risk assessment information to judicial decisionmakers by incorporating information about 

drug test results for newly arrested defendants into the agency’s report presented at the defendant’s first 

appearance.

• To enhance available release options by permitting judges to require periodic drug testing as a condition 

of release.

The D.C. pilot program had several significant results. First, it demonstrated that it was feasible to administer

drug tests to all newly arrested defendants using an onsite facility (with the requisite lab equipment) at the

courthouse. Second, researchers found that arrestees who tested positive were significantly more likely to be

rearrested for a new crime if released.This association was strongest when other risk factors (such as prior

criminal record and unemployment) were not present. For example, employed persons who tested positive for

drug use were twice as likely to be rearrested as employed persons who tested negative.

Third, the pilot program provided the foundation for an “intensive supervision” program designed to enable 

pretrial release of defendants who would remain in detention if there was no method to monitor closely their

compliance with release conditions, which included remaining drug free.The target group for the intensive supervision program consisted of defendants not released at first appearance.The program components included residence for at least 2 weeks in a halfway house at the onset of the release period, twice-weekly drug testing, and

immediate action to return to the halfway house defendants who violated the conditions.

The intensive supervision program succeeded in meeting three key objectives:

• The jail population was reduced, saving jail space.

• Drug use among the released defendants was low (only 3.5 percent tested positive for the presence of 

illegal drugs).

(continued)
Curfews seek to reduce the potential risk that defendants

will engage in criminal behavior by limiting the amount

of time they spend in the community. To be effective,

curfews must be monitored, and pretrial services programs

do this in a variety of ways. In Santa Clara County,

California, the Office of Pretrial Services relies on correctional officers at the local jail to make telephone calls

to defendants with curfew conditions. In the same State,

the San Mateo County Bar Association Release on Own

Recognizance Program, which operates 24 hours a day,

uses its own staff to contact defendants and to ensure that

curfews are observed.

House arrest and electronic monitoring prevent defendants from leaving home unless the court or the supervising pretrial services agency gives permission. In the U.S.

District Court for Oregon, if a defendant who is under

house arrest or on electronic monitoring leaves home

without permission, a private-sector monitoring company

under contract to the court notifies the pretrial services

agency on a 24-hour basis. The duty officer then attempts

to resolve the issue by telephone. If it appears that the

defendant has left the residence, the officer immediately

goes to the home, accompanied by a U.S. marshal, to

determine the defendant’s status.

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

43

USING DRUG TESTING AS A TOOL FOR RISK ASSESSMENT AND

RISK MANAGEMENT, CONTINUED

• Although the released defendants were clearly at high risk for pretrial crime, they had very low rearrest 

rates—7.8 percent on any charge and only 3.5 percent on felony charges.

Program administrators in the District of Columbia believe the results provide two important reasons for pretrial services agencies to conduct drug testing. First, the results indicate that knowledge about a defendant’s drug

use is potentially useful for judges in setting conditions of pretrial release. Second, the results suggest that drug

testing, especially when coupled with rapid response to violations, can help improve pretrial monitoring and

reduce the risk of criminal behavior by released defendants.a

Other research has produced less clear-cut results, however. A later NIJ-sponsored study examined the effectiveness of drug testing with newly arrested persons as a means of predicting pretrial misconduct at eight sites, including the District of Columbia. Researchers found that, although some evidence indicated that drug test results could

predict failure to appear or rearrest for some circumstances and in some of the sites, the evidence was inconsistent. For some sites, the tests did not predict either type of misconduct. For others, the test results could predict

either rearrest or failure to appear (FTA), but rarely both. Some evidence indicated that a positive test for opiates

(heroin, for example) would help predict rearrest and that a positive test for cocaine would help predict FTA.b

While the later NIJ study is inconclusive with respect to the predictive power of drug testing with new

arrestees, proponents of drug testing note that other key purposes of testing were not addressed in the

research.These purposes include identifying needs for drug treatment at an early stage of the pretrial process

(and thus facilitating the delivery of needed services, possibly including participation in a drug court program)

and helping to supervise released defendants.The D.C. program continues to make extensive use of drug testing,

both to help set conditions of release and to monitor compliance with release conditions.

a.Toborg, M., J. Bellassai,A.Yezer, and R.Trost, Assessment of Pretrial Urine Testing in the District of Columbia, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of

Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1989;Visher, C.,“Using Drug Testing to Identify High-Risk Defendants on Release: A Study in the District

of Columbia,” Journal of Criminal Justice 18(4) (1990); Carver, J.,“Pretrial Drug Testing: An Essential Step in Bail Reform,” Brigham Young

University Journal of Public Law 5 (1991).

b. Rhodes,W., R. Hyatt, and P. Scheiman,“Predicting Pretrial Misconduct With Drug Tests of Arrestees: Evidence From Eight Settings,” Journal of

Quantitative Criminology 12 (3) (September 1996): 315–346.
Direct supervision 

No pretrial services program has the capacity to directly

supervise released defendants around the clock. However,

some programs have developed a supervision capacity

that, for certain categories of cases, goes well beyond

simply monitoring defendants’ compliance with conditions imposed by the court. The District of Columbia

Pretrial Services Agency, for example, uses drug testing

and a halfway house to help supervise relatively high-risk

defendants (see “Using Drug Testing as a Tool for Risk

Assessment and Risk Management”). Effective supervision often involves collaboration with other agencies.

To some extent, direct supervision is simply a more

intensive form of monitoring of release conditions—for

example, frequent check-ins and drug tests at the pretrial

services agency, requirements for participation in drug

treatment sessions that occur several times a week with

attendance reported promptly to the pretrial services program, required residency in a halfway house, or curfew

checks by program staff. Often, effective supervision

involves monitoring by the pretrial services agency supplemented by operational collaboration with other agencies, such as the police (residential curfew checks) or jail

officials (correctional officers telephoning defendants who

have curfew requirements, as in Santa Clara County).

Responding to violation of release 

conditions

Some released defendants will fail to comply with their

conditions of release. The pretrial services program’s

credibility and effectiveness within the criminal justice

community depends to a significant extent on how it

responds to such failures because violations of release

conditions are often a precursor to FTA or criminal conduct.

Responding quickly demonstrates that the defendant’s

activities are being monitored and that noncompliance

will result in swift action (see “Learning From Drug

Court’s Immediacy”).

Not every violation of a condition of release must be

reported to the court. Indeed, judges generally are not

interested in holding hearings on reports of minor infractions of release conditions. For example, if a released

defendant misses a telephone check-in appointment, the

pretrial services program staff should promptly contact

the defendant but probably need not inform the court. A

clear explanation to the defendant of the need for compliance with the check-in requirement, perhaps coupled

with a requirement for more frequent check-ins, may be

more effective than a report to the court that could set in

motion a revocation of release. 

The National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies

(NAPSA) Standards recommend that the pretrial services

agency exercise some discretion in evaluating the seriousness of any noncompliance, taking into account the

nature of the condition, the reason for noncompliance,

and the seriousness of the violation.1 Thus, while a single

missed telephone check-in might not require a report to

the court, repeated failure to check in would indicate a

need for court action.

The Pretrial Services Resource Center recommends that,

consistent with the NAPSA Standards, programs should

collaborate with the courts to develop standard procedures

for responding to violations, including procedures for—

• Handling minor violations without reporting them 

to court.

• Submitting written reports to the court on more serious 

violations.

• Sending written notice of the alleged violation to the 

defendant, the defendant’s attorney, and the prosecutor.

• Conducting court hearings on more serious violations,

with notice of the hearing dates and the alleged violations sent to the defendant, the defendant’s attorney,

and the prosecutor.2

In considering how to respond to a violation, both the

pretrial services program and the court have a range of

options that the NAPSA Standards divide into three 

general categories:

• Remedial actions designed to address a problem that 

poses a risk of nonappearance or pretrial crime—for 

example, if the program learns that a defendant has 

been using drugs or alcohol, remedial action could 

include imposition of requirements for drug testing,

participation in a drug or alcohol abuse treatment 

program, or mental health counseling.

C HAPTER 3: P RETRIAL S UPERVISION S TRATEGIES

44
• Restrictive sanctions that limit a defendant’s freedom of

movement and associations and may require electronic

monitoring or adherence to a curfew.

• Punitive sanctions that punish the defendant for noncompliance and may include imposition of a fine or 

jail sentence.3

As a practical matter, determining effective punitive sanctions can sometimes be difficult because many jails are

overcrowded and many defendants are indigent. Supervised

community service is another possible sanction for violation of release conditions.

Supervision of Defendants 

With Special Needs 

Many persons arrested by the police have problems of

drug abuse, alcohol abuse, or mental illness. Arrests for

possession of illegal drugs, public intoxication, and driving while intoxicated (DWI) make up a large proportion

of the total arrests in many jurisdictions, and drug and

alcohol abuse are contributing factors in the commission

of many other types of crimes. A number of jurisdictions

report having significant numbers of mentally disabled

persons (some of whom also abuse drugs or alcohol) in

their justice systems. Many of these individuals could be

released from jail before trial if judicial officers responsible for the release/detention decision had reliable information about the nature and extent of their problems,

and if adequate mechanisms were available to supervise

defendants in the community and provide them with

needed services.

For pretrial services programs and the courts they serve,

these defendants pose special challenges. Four sets of

operational questions are especially important in relation

to defendants with special needs.

How can program staff learn about the

existence of special needs? 

In some instances, the problems and needs of a newly

arrested defendant will be glaringly obvious from physical

signs such as slurred or incoherent speech, glazed eyes, or

the odor of alcohol on the defendant’s breath. Sometimes,

the nature of the charge—for example, possession of a

controlled substance or DWI—will indicate the existence

of a substance abuse problem and need for treatment. In

the District of Columbia and other jurisdictions that routinely administer drug tests to newly arrested defendants,

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

45

LEARNING FROM DRUG COURT’S IMMEDIACY

During their short history, drug courts have relied on incremental sanctions to respond to a program participant’s relapse into drug use.When urine testing shows that a defendant has used drugs in violation of program

conditions, the drug court judge will typically impose a sanction—for example, require more frequent court

appearances, require more frequent drug testing, order the defendant to spend a day in the jury box observing

drug court proceedings, or order the defendant to spend one or more nights in jail.The sanction is not necessarily severe, but it is imposed rapidly (often within a day or two of the positive test result), and repeated relapses result in progressively more severe sanctions. (Conversely, when drug court participants show progress

by consistently participating in treatment program activities and testing negative, the restrictions are relaxed.)

Drug court judges and other practitioners believe that a critical element of program effectiveness is the immediacy of the court’s response. Action is taken quickly, while the relapse is still fresh in the participant’s mind and

the consequences are closely linked to the violation of program conditions.

Many drug courts use a “pre-plea” model, in which drug court participants are in a pretrial release status and

participation in the drug court program (including compliance with program requirements) is a condition of

release. However, the policy of immediate response to noncompliance and the use of escalating sanctions need

not be limited to participants in a drug court program.These can be used to help strengthen the credibility of

the regular court and the pretrial services program with respect to use of a wide range of release conditions.
positive urine test results will indicate at least the likelihood of a drug problem. And, as noted in chapter 2, most

pretrial services programs routinely ask defendants during the initial interview about their physical and mental

health, including alcohol and drug abuse. 

Some problems or needs may not be readily apparent and

will require further inquiry. Some programs ask followup

questions to develop more detailed information about

substance abuse and physical and mental health issues

and to gain a better sense of the nature and extent of the

defendant’s needs. Often, asking a few additional questions of defendants who appear to have substance abuse

or mental health problems can provide valuable information in making a referral for clinical assessment or in taking

other action.4 Other special needs are sometimes suggested

by defendants’ responses to questions about employment,

living situations, and medical needs. 

How should program staff use information

about defendants’ substance abuse and

mental health needs in making risk assessments and presenting information or 

recommendations to the court? 

The preliminary screening that can be done in a postarrest interview before a defendant’s initial court appearance is, of course, necessarily limited in scope and depth.

It is far short of a clinical assessment, but—if conducted

by a trained interviewer—the screening can help identify

problems that can be addressed through appropriate education or treatment. The screening can also be an important tool in assessing the nature and extent of the risks of

flight and dangerousness posed by the defendant and in

framing suggestions or recommendations concerning

conditions of pretrial release. Information about a defendant’s special needs is only one of many factors that go

into a risk assessment, but knowledge of these needs (and

of the clinical and programmatic resources in the community that could be applied to help address the needs)

will enable the pretrial services program to suggest realistic options to the courts.

What types of resources can be used 

to meet the special needs of released 

defendants? 

The types of programmatic and clinical resources that can

be used to help provide supervision and meet special needs

of released defendants will vary from one community to

another. Courts and pretrial services programs use several

types of programs, and the defendant’s participation in

the program generally is one of the conditions of release. 

Halfway houses provide shelter and food for defendants

who are homeless or have no stable community ties.

Halfway houses also may provide counseling and treatment services and may limit the risk of pretrial crime by

reducing the amount of time the defendant spends in an

unstructured setting. The U.S. Pretrial Services Office in

the Western District of Texas makes extensive use of a

halfway house in San Antonio under a contract arrangement.

The halfway house provides job placement services; drug

counseling; Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous

groups; and, in conjunction with Pretrial Services and 

the Bureau of Prisons, counseling to defendants who are

awaiting sentencing. In addition, the facility has instituted

a day reporting program for some defendants.

Testing and treatment for drug and alcohol use are conditions that courts can impose in cases involving defendants

who are known to abuse drugs or alcohol. Pretrial services

programs often play a key role in arranging different

treatment modalities, including detoxification programs,

residential and outpatient facilities, 12-step programs, daytreatment programs, mentally ill chemically addicted (MICA)

programs, methadone maintenance, and acupuncture. These

services are paid for by a variety of means, including

grants, contracts, private health insurance, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, and occasionally, the defendants themselves. Some pretrial services agencies use their own 

personnel to provide limited treatment, such as group

counseling, directly to defendants.

Mental health treatment is available in many communities,

and it is common for pretrial programs to recommend

that defendants with mental disabilities be released on the

conditions that they participate in a mental health treatment program and take prescribed medication. Followup

supervision can help ensure these conditions are met.

Behavior modification programs are rarely used by the

courts as a condition of pretrial release because participation may be seen as an admission that the defendant has

committed the behavior of which he or she has been

accused. Nevertheless, some pretrial services agencies

provide such programs directly or make referrals, normally

on a voluntary basis. For example, the Salt Lake City

C HAPTER 3: P RETRIAL S UPERVISION S TRATEGIES

46
Pretrial Services Agency provides an anger management

class once a week for defendants charged with domestic

violence. The San Mateo County Bar Association Release

on Own Recognizance Program refers defendants to a private treatment program contracted by the county to provide

anger management treatment to pretrial defendants. Most

defendants referred have been charged with domestic

violence, and they attend until their cases are closed. 

Employment training and placement services are another

resource that can be used for defendants on conditional

release. Unemployment is often associated with criminal

behavior, and provision of job training—whether in house

or on a referral basis—can help meet the needs of jobless

defendants. For example, the U.S. Pretrial Services Agency

for the Southern District of New York has been developing its own in-house employment placement program.

Program elements include a comprehensive directory of

job placement services, access to the New York State

Department of Labor’s computerized job bank, and an

employment referral service. An employment readiness

group assists defendants in writing resumes, preparing

for interviews, and assessing career potential.

What role should program staff play in

monitoring and supervising special needs

defendants who are released conditionally? 

A few pretrial services programs provide a broad range

of services for defendants with special needs. The

District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency routinely

administers drug tests for defendants who are released on

the condition that they participate in a program that includes

periodic reporting and urine testing. In Milwaukee, the

pretrial services program (Wisconsin Correctional Services)

conducts an intensive supervision and treatment program

for defendants charged with a second offense of DWI

that includes outpatient therapy, participation in self-help

groups, attendance at victim-impact panels, random alcohol and drug testing, and telephone and inperson contacts

with program staff. 

The Milwaukee program also provides in-house clinical

mental health treatment for some categories of defendants,

using staff psychiatrists and nurses, dispensing medicine

from its own pharmacy, and providing housing for program participants. The scope of the Milwaukee program’s

services is exceptional, however. In most jurisdictions,

the role of a pretrial services program simply involves

maintaining contact with the defendant (and sometimes

with a treatment provider) to ensure that the defendant is

complying with required participation in the program and

reporting to the court on an “as needed” basis.

During the past decade, many jurisdictions have developed

drug and other innovative programs designed to deal with

some categories of defendants who have substance abuse

and mental health problems. Where pretrial services programs have existed in the jurisdiction, they have generally

played key roles in the design and implementation of

these innovations—primarily because of their capacity to

obtain, analyze, and transmit information rapidly about

newly arrested defendants to judicial decisionmakers. As

the scope of these programmatic innovations expands in

future years, the potential role of pretrial services programs—helping to identify eligible defendants, monitoring compliance with program conditions, and providing

direct supervision and other services in some instances—

is likely to become even more important. Effective performance of these functions will help achieve five broadly

shared policy objectives:

• Reduce unnecessary detention.

• Increase public safety. 

• Reduce jail crowding.

• Reduce substance abuse by program participants.

• Improve participants’ mental and physical health.

Interjurisdictional and

“Courtesy” Supervision 

Supervision of defendants released by another jurisdiction

and permitted to live outside the jurisdiction of arrest has

become an increasingly significant part of the risk management work of some pretrial services programs. Federal

pretrial services agencies provide such courtesy supervision for each other as a matter of national policy, and the

NAPSA Standards recommend that all pretrial services

agencies make arrangements to call on each other for

assistance in both factual investigations and supervision

of released defendants when necessary.

Interjurisdictional supervision is especially important

when a defendant lives in a county or State other than the

one in which the arrest took place. As noted in commentary

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

47
to the NAPSA Standards, judicial officers are much more

likely to release transients on nonfinancial conditions if a

background check has been done and agreement for

supervision of the transient defendant has been reached

with the pretrial services program in the defendant’s

home jurisdiction.5

Notes

1. National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies

(NAPSA), Performance Standards and Goals for Pretrial

Release, commentary to Standard X, Washington, DC:

NAPSA, 1978.

2. Kennedy, S., D.A. Henry, J. Clark, and J. Juszkiewicz,

Pretrial Issues: Pretrial Release and Supervision Program

Training Supplement, Washington, DC: Pretrial Services

Resource Center, 1996: 49.

3. NAPSA, Performance Standards and Goals for

Pretrial Release, commentary to Standard VI.

4. For examples of tools that programs can use to help

identify some special needs, see Center for Substance

Abuse Treatment, Simple Screening Instruments for

Outreach for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and

Infectious Diseases—Treatment Improvement Protocol

(TIP) no. 11, Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health

and Human Services, 1994.

5. NAPSA, Performance Standards and Goals for

Pretrial Release, commentary to Standard IX.

C HAPTER 3: P RETRIAL S UPERVISION S TRATEGIES

48
Chapter 4

Sharing Pretrial Services Information for 

Use Beyond the Release/Detention Decision

The primary function of pretrial services programs is the

collection of information that is mainly used in the pretrial

release/detention decisionmaking process and to monitor

compliance with conditions of release. However, this

information often can be valuable to other justice system

agencies. By sharing some types of information while

ensuring appropriate protection for information that should

be treated confidentially, pretrial services programs can

significantly contribute to the administration of justice in

ways that extend beyond their core functions. This chapter

describes how information can be shared productively

with other justice system agencies and discusses important limitations on the dissemination and use of information gathered by program staff.

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

49

KEY POINTS

• Information collected by pretrial services programs can be valuable in the work of other justice system 

agencies and institutions, including—

— Police departments and other law enforcement agencies in serving warrants and helping to supervise 

— defendants on conditional release.

— Local corrections agencies in classifying defendants to meet their medical needs and to allocate space and 

— personnel.

— Courts in imposing sentences and managing special dockets.

— Diversion programs and social service providers in making decisions about program eligibility and delivery

— of specific types of services.

• While information sharing can be helpful in achieving many justice system objectives, the personal information 

collected by pretrial services programs is of a very sensitive nature. Pretrial services programs, and the 

jurisdictions in which they operate, need to establish policies to ensure that the information is not misused.

Integrated justice information systems—computer-based systems that enable instantaneous exchange of information about persons and events across the boundaries of different agencies and institutions—are now operational

in a few jurisdictions and are being developed in many others. It is important for pretrial services program

administrators to be involved in developing policies and plans for an integrated system to take advantage of

information-sharing opportunities and to help establish appropriate safeguards for information that should

remain confidential.
Sharing Information With 

Other Agencies

Pretrial services programs need to know the following to

fashion an effective policy for information sharing:

• What types of information other agencies may need.

• How to exchange the information easily.

• Under what circumstances information collected by the 

pretrial services program should be released to others.

Sharing information with law enforcement

agencies 

Because pretrial services programs contact many agencies

and individuals in the community to track defendants’

whereabouts and activities, law enforcement agencies

may find their information very useful—for example, for

serving warrants on defendants who fail to appear for

scheduled court dates, for locating defendants wanted on

other warrants, and for assisting in the supervision of

defendants on conditional release.

Sharing information with law enforcement also can help

achieve the goals of a pretrial services program. Rapid

execution of bench warrants issued when a defendant

fails to appear for a scheduled court date—through an

arrest if necessary—contributes to the perception among

defendants and the general public that the system is 

serious about obligations to return to court and will act

quickly if necessary. This perception can help reduce 

failure-to-appear rates. Police officers can also assist programs in verifying information obtained through interviews with defendants and in supervising conditions 

of release. In Kentucky, the statewide pretrial services

agency calls on local police to locate individuals needed

for verification purposes.

Sharing information with jail officials

At some point, generally early in the process, the corrections department or the sheriff’s office will perform its

own risk assessment or classification of defendants who

remain in jail pending trials. This process typically

involves examining the defendant’s prior criminal record,

demographic information, and need for medical or 

substance abuse treatment services. Often, the process

duplicates much of the information gathering already

performed by pretrial services interviewers.

By sharing its information with jail classification staff,

the pretrial services program can save time and avoid

duplication of effort. Sharing this information can be

especially valuable when an arrestee needs detoxification

or other medical services. In Cincinnati, the intake information gathered by the Hamilton County Department of

Pretrial Services is the primary source of information for

jail classification. In San Mateo County, California, the

Bar Association’s Release on Own Recognizance Program

collects the initial intake data and performs the classification assessment for the sheriff’s office. In Philadelphia,

the pretrial services program identifies individuals who

seem to exhibit mental disorders during the initial interview and informs jail officials so that these persons can

receive prompt attention from the jail’s psychiatric unit.

Sharing information for sentencing purposes

In addition to using information provided by pretrial

services programs for initial release/detention decisionmaking and for reviewing compliance with conditions of

pretrial release, judicial officers in some courts find the

information can be valuable at the time of sentencing

First, much of the information collected by pretrial services

programs before the initial release/detention decision—

including information on residence, family ties, employment, physical and mental condition, use or abuse of

alcohol or other drugs, and prior criminal record—is

identical to information ordinarily collected by probation

staff in preparing presentence investigation reports. In

jurisdictions where information collected at the pretrial

stage is routinely shared with the probation staff, major

cost savings can be achieved by avoiding duplicated

work. While probation staff responsible for presentence

reports may need to update the information and tap some

additional resources, the pretrial services program collects basic information that can serve as a foundation for

the presentence report. Furthermore, in cases where there

is no presentence investigation report (true of a high proportion of misdemeanor convictions), the pretrial services

report can provide valuable information to the sentencing

judge that may not be available from any other source.

C HAPTER 4: S HARING P RETRIAL S ERVICES I NFO RMATION

50
P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

51

Second, when pretrial services programs are responsible

for supervising defendants released on nonfinancial conditions, they routinely collect monitoring information that

can be helpful at sentencing. In Harris County, Texas, the

Pretrial Services Agency prepares almost all of its information reports in automated format. Staff continue to

update the interview information throughout the pretrial

period and include updated information in the county’s

Justice Information Management System. The information is then available to probation staff, the court, and

other criminal justice agencies in the county.

Third, as jurisdictions begin experimenting with “fast

tracking” some types of cases (including felony charge

cases), there is growing interest in using information

gathered by pretrial services programs to help shape an

early disposition in lieu of conducting a separate presentence investigation. Since much of this information is

often obtained from defendants who have not had an

opportunity to consult with counsel, this is an area in

which particular attention must be paid to issues of confidentiality and protection of defendants’ due process

rights (see “Potential Uses of Information Collected by

Pretrial Services Programs”).

As one predictor of postadjudication compliance with

conditions of probation, the defendant’s record of compliance with court-ordered conditions of pretrial release

can be of use to judges at sentencing. While the sentencing judge should take into account factors beyond a

defendant’s pretrial “track record,” information on compliance with conditions of pretrial release can add a significant new dimension to the court’s final decision. For

example, a defendant who cannot comply with pretrial

conditions—such as observing a curfew or remaining

drug free—probably needs a more structured setting 

following conviction. Conversely, a defendant who has

adhered to all of the requirements imposed during the

pretrial period has already demonstrated a capacity to

comply with possible probation conditions. 

In some instances, information may suggest the need to

continue specific kinds of social service programs. For

example, if a defendant has already participated in three

different drug programs and one program has proved to

be particularly suited to his or her specific treatment

needs, this information can permit a judge to tailor probation conditions to the individual in a way that otherwise

would not be possible. The Maricopa County (Phoenix),

Arizona, Pretrial Services Agency is one of a number of

programs that provide memorandums to the court reporting on the compliance record of supervised defendants.

Sharing information for use in differentiated

case management and in conducting special

dockets

A number of courts have developed forms of differentiated case management that involve using special dockets to

handle particular categories of cases. Drug courts, in

operation in more than 400 jurisdictions as of 1999, are

perhaps the best known example. Other special dockets

have been developed for domestic violence cases and for

driving while intoxicated (DWI) and driving under the

influence (DUI) cases.

Typically, these special courts involve a close link

between court case processing and a community-based

treatment or other intervention program. Defendants who

meet a set of eligibility criteria can participate in the special

court program, often with an incentive such as dismissal

or reduction of the charge (if it is a pretrial program) or

sentence reduction (if it is a postadjudication program).

Pretrial services programs can serve as frontline screeners for program eligibility for two main reasons: (1) they

have already collected much of the information needed to

determine program eligibility during the initial interview,

and (2) they can collect additional relevant information

while interviewing defendants whose criminal charges

make them likely candidates for these programs. Examples

of differentiated case management include the following:

• The District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency uses 

• information from defendant interviews and drug tests,

• plus prior record checks, as the foundation for reports 

• that help judges set conditions of release—including 

• participation in the Superior Court’s drug court pro-

• gram—for substance-abusing defendants.

• The Berkeley (California) Own Recognizance Project 

• provides the local drug court with information about 

• defendants’ criminal records, drug use history, alcohol 

• use, mental health history, and living arrangements to 

• help the court decide on the eligibility and suitability of

• potential drug court participants.
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52

POTENTIAL USES OF INFORMATION COLLECTED BY

PRETRIAL SERVICES PROGRAMS

Justice system practitioners can use information gathered by pretrial services programs in many ways, including

the following:

• Jail officials can use the information to—

— Identify defendants in need of detoxification or other medical services.

— Provide a foundation for the jail’s own risk assessment and classification.

• Judicial officers and court staff can use the information to—

— Help set conditions of release.

— Enforce compliance with conditions of nonfinancial release.

— Help identify defendants eligible for diversion programs and for special dockets (e.g., drug court, driving 

— under the influence (DUI) court, domestic violence court).

— Link defendants with needed medical and social services.

— Help shape early case dispositions (especially when no separate presentence investigation report will 

be prepared).

• Probation departments can use the information to—

— Avoid duplication of work in obtaining basic background information needed for preparation of 

— presentence investigation reports.

— Learn about performance on pretrial release to help shape recommendations for presentence 

— investigation reports.

• Police departments can use the information to—

— Locate defendants wanted on warrants issued for failure to appear and other offenses.

— Monitor the activities of medium- to high-risk defendants on pretrial release, using information about 

— their residence and the conditions imposed by the courts.

• Researchers can use the information to—

— Learn about pretrial release/detention practices in the jurisdiction and about the performance of different

— categories of defendants released on nonfinancial conditions.

— Provide feedback to program administrators and other justice system policymakers.
• In New York City, the innovative Midtown Community 

• Court, which handles misdemeanor and ordinance vio-

• lation cases stemming from arrests in midtown Manhattan,

• uses information provided by the Criminal Justice 

• Agency (the city’s pretrial services agency) at first 

• appearance to help link defendants with appropriate

• social services, including drug, alcohol, and mental 

• health treatment. In addition to information routinely 

• collected in the pretrial interview, the agency provides 

• the court with information about the defendant’s current

• and prior substance abuse and treatment and about other

• social service needs.

Sharing information with diversion 

programs and social service providers

In their initial interview and verification process, pretrial

services programs can gather information about the

defendant’s appearance, memory, capacity to respond to

questions, emotional state, psychiatric history, and past 

or current medications. Although this type of information

should not be used as the basis for diagnosis, it can be

helpful to jail officials, the court, prosecution and defense

lawyers, and mental health treatment providers regardless

of whether the defendant is released or kept in detention.

For example, the information may suggest the need for a

forensic examination to determine the defendant’s capacity to stand trial or for medication or counseling to enable

the defendant to function if released from custody.

Pretrial diversion programs provide an option of deferred

prosecution for certain categories of defendants who are

willing to participate in some type of treatment or perform

community service. Information gathered and verified by

the pretrial services program can assist the court and

diversion program in determining defendants’ eligibility

and in preparing case management plans. 

Sharing information with researchers 

Pretrial services program records can be an extraordinarily

valuable source of data for researchers and, of course, for

evaluation of the program itself. The National Association

of Pretrial Services Agencies (NAPSA) Standards encourage the use of information about defendants for research,

provided that no defendant can be identified by any label

(such as name or docket number) in the researchers’

report.1

Limitations on Information

Sharing

Information sharing of the type described at the start of

this chapter can be helpful in achieving many justice system

objectives, but it is important to remember that information about the defendant’s employment, living situation,

substance abuse history, physical and mental health problems, and prior criminal history is personal and of a highly

sensitive nature. Furthermore, much of the information is

collected initially from defendants who are emotionally

distraught and generally have had no contact with a

defense lawyer prior to the interview. 

While the information obtained through the interview 

and from other sources can be valuable for making the

release/detention decision and for setting conditions of

release, the pretrial services program and other justice

system policymakers must ensure that the information is

not misused (see “Confidentiality Issues: Setting Limits

on the Sharing of Information Collected by Pretrial

Services Programs”). A number of relevant questions 

can arise, including the following:

• What if the defendant makes self-incriminating statements during the interview?

• What if the defendant admits to a condition, such as 

drug or alcohol abuse, that could affect the sentence

that would be imposed if there were a conviction?

• Should the names of persons who have verified information about the defendant be included in a document 

that will be part of a public record if (1) the defendant 

does not consent, or (2) the verifier does not consent?

• To what extent should information about the defendant’s physical and mental health be available to 

persons or agencies not directly involved in the 

release/detention decision?

Given the sensitive nature of the information, coupled

with the need to obtain information from defendants who

likely would be uncooperative if they knew that what

they said could be made available to others, it is important for pretrial services programs—and the justice systems within which they operate—to develop realistic

policies that will ensure appropriate confidentiality and

establish limits on information sharing.

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53
C HAPTER 4: S HARING P RETRIAL S ERVICES I NFO RMATION

54

CONFIDENTIALITY ISSUES: SETTING LIMITS ON THE SHARING OF

INFORMATION COLLECTED BY PRETRIAL SERVICES PROGRAMS

Information collected by pretrial services programs has many uses unrelated to the release/detention decision or

to pretrial supervision of released defendants:

• In investigating other crimes, police officials may want to use information regarding the defendant’s residence 

and the names and phone numbers of the defendant’s associates.

• In administrative proceedings or civil lawsuits, welfare agencies and estranged domestic partners may want to 

use information about a defendant’s residence, employment, and associates.

• Prosecutors may be interested in a defendant’s statements to a program interviewer, in the results of drug 

tests for use in prosecuting the defendant, or in persuading the defendant to become an informer or 

cooperating witness in the prosecution of other persons.

Pretrial services programs have generally taken the position—as set forth in Standard XII of the NAPSA

Standards on Pretrial Release—that information obtained in the course of the program’s investigation and during

postrelease supervision should remain confidential with certain limited exceptions. A primary concern is that

defendants would not cooperate in the pretrial interview if they knew that information they provided could be

used against them or could be used to investigate their references.The commentary to NAPSA Standard XII sets

forth some principles that may be used as the basis for developing a workable policy on information sharing:

• Information obtained during the agency’s investigation or during monitoring of conditions of release should 

not be admissible on the issue of innocence or guilt.

• Extraneous prejudicial information (for example, defendants’ statements about arrests that did not result in 

convictions) should not be included in reports submitted to the court.

• Information should be given to police to execute warrants for failure to appear but should be limited to 

information necessary to execute the warrant.

• Information about the defendant’s behavior and compliance with release conditions should be available for use 

in presentence investigation reports.

• Information that is not already public should not be released to any individual organization outside the 

criminal justice system without the expressed permission of the defendant at or near the time the 

information is to be released.

The pretrial services program should have a written policy on the extent to which defendants and criminal 

justice personnel can have access to defendants’ files:

• Information in defendants’ files may be used for research, information management reports, and evaluation,

but only if no individual defendant can be identified in the report of the research.

• Access to agency files for research purposes should be denied except under close supervision and pursuant 

to a written agreement setting forth the purposes of the research and the conditions under which access has 

been granted.

• Pretrial services staff and records should not be subject to subpoena, except for purposes of prosecuting a 

defendant for noncompliance with conditions of release.
A few jurisdictions have done this by court rule.

Kentucky’s Criminal Rule 4.08, for example, requires

that all information collected by the statewide pretrial

services agency be kept confidential except for use by—

• The court in imposing conditions of release.

• Law enforcement officials if the defendant fails to 

appear.

• The court in reviewing compliance with conditions in 

connection with modification of the conditions or sentencing or probation.

• The court in imposing a sentence.

• The probation officer preparing the presentence report 

• or the defense attorney, at the court’s discretion. 

• Evaluators of the pretrial release program, when 

authorized by order of the Supreme Court.

State legislators have historically been reluctant to

expand the scope of privileged communications beyond

those that exist under common law (such as husbandwife, patient-doctor, parishioner-clergy). However, it is

possible for pretrial services programs to establish their

own confidentiality policies and to work out agreements

with courts and prosecutors to protect information they

have collected from being subject to subpoena.

The Pretrial Services Resource Center recommends that

the information collected by pretrial services programs

generally be treated as confidential, subject to limited

exceptions. In addition to use by courts to make release/

detention decisions and to respond to violations of release

conditions, the Resource Center recommends allowing

pretrial information to be used—if relevant—in perjury

proceedings and in situations where it can be applied to

impeach the testimony of a witness, but not for purposes

of determining a defendant’s guilt.2

Finally, as noted in chapter 2, many pretrial services programs routinely advise defendants about the extent to which

the information they provide will be treated as confidential, who can have access to it, and how it can be used.

The Role of Pretrial Services in

Integrated Justice Information

Systems 

There is growing interest in many jurisdictions in the

development of integrated justice information systems—

automated systems that enable the instantaneous exchange

of information about persons and events across the

“boundaries” of the different agencies and institutions

that make up the criminal justice system.3 These systems

can eliminate duplicative information collection and 

data entry, minimize personnel costs, and provide decisionmakers with comprehensive and rapid access to

information (see “Pretrial Services Programs as a 

Central Point of Data Collection in an Integrated Justice

Information Management System: The Harris County

Approach”). With advances in computer technology, the

technological barriers to integration—such as the use of

different computer hardware and software systems by

agencies and institutions involved in the justice system—

have become less formidable. Future obstacles to integration are likely to be more serious at the policy level—for

example, concerns about which agencies should be part of

the integrated system, which agencies have “ownership”

of what data, what information should be shared with

other organizations, and what information should be kept

within a single agency—than at the technical level. New

technology will make it feasible both to share information broadly and to protect the confidentiality of information that should not be disseminated.

Because pretrial services programs collect a great deal 

of information that can be useful for both decisionmaking and investigative purposes, it is important to consider

what role these programs should play—and how the

information they gather should be both used and protected from inappropriate use—in an integrated system.

Pretrial services program administrators have a responsibility to establish clear policies with respect to the sharing of information they collect. They must also be prepared

to consider how information that should remain confidential can be protected when the program functions in an

integrated system. Other justice system administrators

and policymakers need to ensure that pretrial services programs are involved in the discussions and negotiations as

policies governing information sharing in an integrated

system are developed.

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55
Notes

1. National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies,

Performance Standards and Goals for Pretrial Release,

Standard XII, Washington, DC, 1978: NAPSA.

2. Kennedy, S., D.A. Henry, J. Clark, and J. Juszkiewicz,

Pretrial Issues: Pretrial Release and Supervision

Program Training Supplement, Washington, DC: Pretrial

Services Resource Center, 1996: 69–71.

3. Justice and Technology in the 21st Century: Findings

and Recommendations from the Report of the National

Task Force on Court Automation and Integration,

Sacramento, CA: SEARCH, the National Consortium 

for Justice Information and Statistics, 1998.

C HAPTER 4: S HARING P RETRIAL S ERVICES I NFO RMATION

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PRETRIAL SERVICES PROGRAMS AS A CENTRAL POINT OF DATA

COLLECTION IN AN INTEGRATED JUSTICE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

SYSTEM:THE HARRIS COUNTY APPROACH

Interviewers in pretrial services agencies in some large jurisdictions—including Harris County (Houston),Texas,

Maricopa County (Phoenix),Arizona, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia—now enter the

data online during the interview.

The Harris County automated, integrated Justice Information Management System illustrates what can be accomplished through use of technology when the pretrial services agency is the principal entry point for information

into the system. An operations manual for the Harris County Pretrial Services Agency outlines some key features

of the report the program prepares:

The report is integral to many criminal justice system processes. It is the most comprehensive assessment of

a defendant’s background available at the probable cause hearing as well as subsequent hearings such as the

preliminary assigned court appearance.To insure the report’s availability at the latter hearing, the Justice

Information Management System’s computer is programmed to print two extra copies of the report every

morning at four o’clock. One copy is forwarded to the District Clerk’s office and one to the District Attorney’s

office.The report becomes part of the permanent file and is available for review and use at subsequent proceedings.The report’s automated format allows those with clearance to review updates to the information

initially compiled.

The Harris County information management system meets all of the following expectations for such a system

when the pretrial services agency is the principal group providing the information:

• Speed. Pretrial services interviewers enter the information into the computer at the same time that they 

conduct the initial factfinding interview—ordinarily within 12 hours following arrest and prior to the 

defendant’s initial appearance before a magistrate.

• Nonduplication. The integrated approach avoids both duplicative gathering of the information and reentry of 

the same data by other agencies.

• Instant access. Immediate, systemwide online availability of the report speeds decisionmaking throughout 

the justice system and should improve the quality of decisions.

• Data integration. Advances in electronic data interchange technology make full integration of the entire justice

system technologically feasible.

• Confidentiality not compromised. Security protections can be built into the integrated automated system to

preserve confidentiality by limiting access to system users approved for access to particular types of information.
Chapter 5

Looking Toward the Future: Key Issues for

Policymakers and Practitioners 

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57

KEY POINTS

• As of 1999, pretrial services programs were operating in more than 300 State and local jurisdictions and in the 

Federal system, but many courts still lacked (1) the essential information typically collected by pretrial services

programs and (2) access to the monitoring and supervision that pretrial programs provide. Even where 

pretrial services programs are well established, many challenges remain.

• Key operational and development issues in the pretrial services field include the following:

— How to provide effective pretrial services for the increasing number of juveniles being prosecuted as 

— adults.

— How to use new technology to enhance the quality and effectiveness of pretrial decisionmaking,

— supervision, and the provision of needed services.

— How to develop systems for effectively using delegated release authority (including field citations, station-

— house release, and release by jail officials), through linkages between the releasing authorities and pretrial 

— services programs to minimize failure-to-appear (FTA) rates.

— How to bring effective pretrial services programs to jurisdictions that do not yet have them.

• With the development of pretrial services programs, increased use of citation release, and enactment in many 

States of statutes establishing a presumption of release on nonfinancial conditions, courts today rely far less on

commercial surety bail than in earlier years. However, commercial bail remains a frequently used option in 

most jurisdictions. Issues related to the continued use of commercial surety bail are likely to be at the forefront of policy development in the pretrial services field in the years ahead, with advocates for the commercial 

bail industry clashing with proponents of pretrial services programs on a number of issues.The policy area in 

which there is perhaps the sharpest disagreement involves the concept of equal justice. Proponents of the 

surety bail system take the position that arrested persons should be responsible for the costs of their release.

Critics, including proponents of pretrial services programs, note that under a surety bail system:

— Innocent persons who are arrested must pay the cost of bond despite their innocence.

— Poor defendants often remain in jail, while affluent defendants facing similar charges (and with similar 

— prior records) are able to gain their freedom by posting bond.

(continued)
Although pretrial services programs were in operation in

more than 300 State and local jurisdictions and in all of

the Federal districts in 1999, most American courts are

still making critically important pretrial release/detention

decisions without having either the information that pretrial services programs typically collect or access to the

monitoring and supervision that these programs can provide. How to bring effective pretrial services programs to

jurisdictions that do not yet have them is one of the key

issues for the future. But, even in jurisdictions where pretrial services programs are well established, many issues

are unresolved and new challenges continue to arise. This

chapter focuses on eight key policy and operational areas

that policymakers and practitioners need to address to

develop the field and implement a full range of effective

pretrial release and supervision policies:

• Juvenile defendants in adult courts.

• Use of new technology.

• Delegated release authority.

• The role of commercial surety bail.

• Judicial discretion and effective management of 

release/detention decisionmaking.

• Research needs.

• Demonstration programs.

• Education and training.

In several of these areas, some pioneering work has

already been done, but there are a great many unanswered

questions and much remains to be learned if pretrial 

services programs are to reach their full potential. 

C HAPTER 5: L OOKING T OWARD THE F UTURE

58

KEY POINTS, CONTINUED

— Responsibility for the actual release decision is moved away from a judicial officer who is accountable to 

— the public to a private entrepreneur (the bondsman) who is accountable to no one.

• The exercise of judicial discretion has long been at the heart of pretrial release/detention decisionmaking, but 

the effects of judicial officers’ unfettered exercise of discretion in this area has begun to be questioned. One 

challenge for the future is how to more effectively structure judicial decisionmaking in the pretrial process 

without making the process a mechanical one that eliminates judges’ discretion in setting conditions of release.

• There is a striking lack of recent research on pretrial services programs and on pretrial release/detention 

decisionmaking in local jurisdictions.Although some difficult methodological problems must be overcome, it is 

important to begin building a base of current knowledge about key issues, including the relative effectiveness 

of different release/detention strategies and program options.At the national level, pretrial services program 

leaders can work with justice system policymakers, practitioners, and funding agencies to shape a national 

agenda that includes focused research in single jurisdictions and multijurisdictional comparative research.

• Demonstration programs can provide the opportunity to test the viability of combining new technology 

with programmatic innovations to achieve system improvements. Developing and evaluating demonstration 

programs that incorporate new technology and the best current practices used by pretrial services programs 

naturally complement a comprehensive research strategy and will provide useful input for education and training programs.

• If pretrial services programs are to reach their full potential, it will be important to develop a full range of 

education and training programs at every level—national, State, and local.The newly established Pretrial Justice

Institute can serve as a focal point for educational leadership in the pretrial services field, but the challenge of 

developing a full range of programs is one that warrants response from justice system agencies, professional 

associations, and funding agencies at every level of government.
Juvenile Defendants in 

Adult Courts 

All States provide for juveniles to be prosecuted as adults

under some circumstances, and in most States the circumstances under which charges against juveniles can be

prosecuted in adult criminal courts have broadened considerably in recent years. Data from the U.S. Department

of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, indicate that during the 1990–94 period approximately 1 percent of all

felony defendants in criminal courts in the Nation’s 75

largest counties were juveniles,1 and practitioners report

that the proportion is increasing. The growing practice of

prosecuting juveniles as adults poses significant problems

for local justice systems and for decisions about detention and release:

• Federal laws and the laws of most States require that

juveniles held in the same detention facility as adults be

kept separate in “sight and sound” from adult inmates.

While juveniles charged as adults are still housed in

juvenile detention facilities in some jurisdictions, in

many places they are held in the adult jail. Most adult

jails are ill equipped to house juveniles, and they seldom

have the types of educational programs and other activities found in juvenile detention facilities. Often, renovations and additional staff are needed to help manage the

juvenile jail population.

• Cases involving juveniles prosecuted as adults are likely 

to take considerably more time to reach disposition in

adult criminal courts than in juvenile court. Slow case

processing exacerbates the problem of pretrial detention

of juveniles, especially when they are held in adult jails.

• Although juveniles prosecuted in adult court are generally

charged with serious crimes, a significant percentage

are charged with nonviolent offenses. Furthermore,

according to Bureau of Justice Statistics data, about a

quarter of these juveniles ultimately will not be convicted

of any charge, and more than 30 percent of those convicted will not be sentenced to jail or prison.2 It is likely

that some of these juveniles will not pose significant

risks of flight or dangerousness and could be safely

released prior to trial if judicial officers could feel confident that they would be adequately supervised. 

• Procedures and criteria used by pretrial services programs

and courts in collecting information and making release/

detention decisions in cases involving adults are often

inappropriate for juveniles. Juvenile defendants often

lack stable housing, employment, and other ties to the

community, and they are likely to have needs for education, counseling, and adult supervision that are significantly different from the needs of adult defendants. If

released prior to trial, they need supervision by persons 

experienced in working with youths.

A few pretrial programs have begun developing ways of

providing needed services to juveniles and to the adult

courts that must handle these cases. In Tucson, Arizona,

the pretrial services program in the Pima County Superior

Court is working with researchers at the University of

Arizona to develop and test an effective locally validated

risk needs assessment instrument that can be used for

pretrial decisionmaking in cases involving juveniles. The

assessment instrument is expected to take account of the

juveniles’ living situations and prior records but will also

focus on substance abuse treatment needs, mental health

issues, education, housing, and other areas identified in

field tests. By using this type of instrument, it should be

possible to identify juveniles who do not pose a serious

risk of flight or of danger to the community and to develop a structured supervision plan that will make it possible

to release them before trial. In implementing the project,

the Pima County Pretrial Services Program will work

with the juvenile court, adult probation department, and

adult detention center to establish a juvenile treatment

team that coordinates delivery of needed services. The

team will work with local resource agencies and will take

advantage of an integrated information system now under

development.

As States continue to expand the categories of cases in

which juveniles can be charged as adults, developing programs like the one in Pima County will become increasingly important. Their development should be based on

longstanding principles of effective pretrial services,

modified to consider the unique needs of juveniles and

coupled with careful research and the type of innovative

use of modern technology that the Pima County program

is modeling. Noteworthy features of the Pima County

program include the following:

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59
• The program is using careful research to develop criteria

and instruments that focus on a key objective of effective

pretrial service programs—maximizing the number of 

defendants who can be released from detention without 

posing unacceptable risks of flight or danger to the 

community.

• The program uses the concept of differentiated case 

management (see chapter 4), recognizing that making 

detention/release decisions in cases involving juveniles 

requires different information than is required for decisions about adults and that different approaches to 

monitoring and supervision will be needed for juveniles

who are released.

• The information-sharing approach, using modern computer technology that includes shared software, will 

provide for rapid exchange of information among 

organizations with no history of such exchange. The 

approach will enable decisions about release—and 

about actions to be taken in response to noncompliance 

with conditions of release—to be made rapidly and on 

the basis of far more comprehensive information than 

has previously been available.

• In providing for an early needs assessment and delivery

of services designed to meet the needs of individual 

juvenile defendants, the program draws on strategies 

commonly used in juvenile courts and, more recently, in

some adult drug courts. The early assessment, coupled 

with the pretrial services program’s capacity to monitor 

and supervise juveniles who are released, should minimize the risks of flight and dangerousness. The program’s

approach also should reduce jail crowding, provide 

needed services to this group of defendants, and offer 

an opportunity for juveniles in trouble with the law to 

begin to turn their lives around.

As of mid-1999, the Pima County program was gathering

data to develop the juvenile risk needs assessment. 

Use of New Technology

The development of new technologies—and their introduction into the workplace—continues to accelerate in

virtually all sectors of society, including the criminal 

justice system. In the pretrial services field, practical

applications of new technology include the following:

• The Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)

to identify newly arrested defendants and rapidly 

retrieve criminal history information.

• Laptop and handheld computers to enter data from 

defendant interviews into the pretrial services program’s

automated database for use in conducting risk assessments, preparing reports for the court, and subsequently

tracking defendants.

• Videoconferencing to interview defendants who are in 

detention in remote locations.

• Urinalysis and barcoding technology to record, store,

and transmit information on drug test results.

• Computer systems to analyze raw data on charge severity

and defendants’ prior record, community ties, and social

service needs and to produce objective risk assessments

and release/supervision recommendations.

• Automated telephone call-in systems (sometimes using 

new voice recognition technology) to facilitate defendants’ check-ins and to notify or remind defendants of 

upcoming court dates or other activities.

• Electronic monitoring of defendants released from 

detention but required to stay at home or remain within 

a limited area.

• Case tracking software to help monitor program caseloads and individual defendants’ compliance with 

conditions of release. 

• Satellite tracking and global positioning systems to 

enable close monitoring of the whereabouts of high-risk

defendants on pretrial release. 

• Electronic mail to facilitate the exchange of information

about defendants with other agencies and with the courts.

While many pretrial services programs are using some of

these innovations, there remains considerable scope for

broader and more effective use of technology by jurisdictions interested in reducing unnecessary detention (see

“Using Technology to Improve Pretrial Services and

Reduce Jail Crowing in Rural Areas”).

New technologies can be used to provide more comprehensive and reliable information to judicial officers

responsible for release/detention decisions than has 

C HAPTER 5: L OOKING T OWARD THE F UTURE

60
previously been available, and can do so more rapidly

than in the past. New technologies can also facilitate

more effective monitoring, supervision, and provision of

needed services and thus permit possible significant

reductions in jail populations.

Delegated Release Authority 

One of the principal tools used to minimize unnecessary

detention in many jurisdictions is the delegation—to law

enforcement agencies or, in some places, to a pretrial

services program—of authority to release arrested persons before their first court appearance. Because delegated release not only holds the potential for very significant

savings but also involves risks to system credibility if not

well implemented, this is an area that warrants close

attention for the future.

There are four main types of delegated release authority:

• Field release, or field citation, typically takes place at

or near the location where the arrest is made and is

commonly used in traffic cases and cases involving relatively minor misdemeanors and ordinance violations.

The arresting public officer issues a citation directing

the individual to appear in court on a specific date to

answer the charge(s) specified on the citation.

• Station house release takes place, as the name implies,

at the police station. Like field release, it is generally

used in nonfelony cases. At the station house, the arrestee

is issued a citation or summons directing him or her to 

appear in court on a specified date. Station house release

is a more costly and time-consuming process for the

police officers than field citation because they must

transport the person to the station, but it has the advantage of allowing time to ascertain or verify the arrestee’s

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61

USING TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE PRETRIAL SERVICES AND

REDUCE JAIL CROWDING IN RURAL AREAS

Perhaps the most obvious area for using new technology is the provision of pretrial services in rural justice systems.All too often, limitations of staff and resources mean that judicial officers in rural areas have little information about the defendant or about available release options, especially for defendants who have substance abuse

problems or other special needs. New technologies make it possible for rural justice systems to put needed

information into the hands of judicial officers very quickly and to develop effective means for monitoring and

supervising defendants released on nonfinancial conditions, including the following:

• Electronic mail to transmit information about the charges and the defendant from the police to the 

• prosecutor, the court, and a centrally located pretrial services program very shortly after arrest.

• Automated Fingerprint Identification System technology to identify the defendant and, combined with 

• automated searches of State and national databases, to obtain information rapidly about prior criminal history 

• and any court orders intended to protect the alleged victim.

• Videoconferencing by centrally located pretrial services program staff to conduct interviews of defendants 

• held in a police station or local jail at a distant location and to present reports to a judicial officer at first 

• appearance (already being done in the Sixth Judicial District of Virginia).

• Automated databases to identify resources—including social services organizations and participation in 

• treatment sessions—into an automated database for electronic transmission to the pretrial services program 

• and the court.

• Electronic monitoring and telephone contact, when necessary, to ensure that the defendant remains in a speci-

• fied location, with support and followup provided by the pretrial services program or staff from other agencies.
identity through a check of computerized criminal history records and contacts with the arrested person’s

family, friends, or employer. In a very real sense,

police officers developing this information act as pretrial services program personnel. Alternatively, the

police can work with an established pretrial services

program, communicating via telephone or electronic

mail to obtain information needed for a station house

release decision. Particularly if the individual is not

released at the station house, information developed

during the identification and verification process conducted at this stage can be valuable for subsequent

pretrial information collection.

• Jail release, usually by the sheriff or jail administrator,

is a third possible point of release before the individual’s initial court appearance. Typically, an arrested

person is booked into the jail, a thorough identification 

and prior record check are conducted, and—if the charges

and prior record information indicate that the individual

meets established criteria—the arrestee is released on a 

citation to appear in court on a specified date. A number

of local jails and corrections departments have their own

pretrial services or “release on recognizance” units that 

conduct record checks and may also interview arrestees 

and verify interview information. If the individual is not

released directly by the jail, the information will be made

available to the judicial officer at first court appearance.

Release from jail on nonfinancial conditions prior to

initial court appearance commonly occurs in misdemeanor and ordinance violation cases in many jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions also authorize release of persons

charged with nonviolent felonies. 

• Release by a court-linked pretrial services program

is operationally similar to jail release, and the program

is often located at or in close proximity to the jail. In

some States and localities, pretrial services programs

have authority to release arrested persons before their

first court appearance in certain categories of cases.

Program staff interview the defendant, verify key

items of information, conduct prior record checks, and

sometimes consult with a duty judge before making a

release/detention decision. Release policies followed

by the program are set by the court, and the scope of

authority is generally limited to relatively minor cases.

Some programs, however, are authorized to release

defendants charged with noncapital felonies.

Proponents of delegated release authority cite a number

of significant advantages to these procedures, including

cost savings, alleviation of pressure on already overcrowded jail facilities, and less reliance on money bail as

a means of obtaining pretrial release. The cost savings

are greatest when field citations are used, but there are

some disadvantages to the field citation procedure. In

particular, because it has often been difficult to identify

the defendant reliably (and, therefore, difficult to obtain

information on the defendant’s prior record at the point

of arrest), police officers cannot be confident that the

individual is not wanted on a warrant and has no history

of previous arrests that would suggest a need for further

investigation. Taking the arrestee to the station house

makes it easier to investigate the arrestee’s identity and

obtain information relevant to assessment of the risks of

nonappearance and pretrial crime. Although release from

the jail is a more time-consuming and staff-intensive

process and adds costs, it provides the opportunity for

more thorough identification and prior record checks.3

All of these types of release save public agencies money

and intrude less in the lives of defendants than booking

the individual into jail and bringing him or her before a

judicial officer for a decision about release or detention.

Citation release, however, has been criticized for resulting in unacceptably high rates of failure to appear (FTA)

and a consequent loss of justice system credibility in the

eyes of defendants and the general public.4 FTA rates in

cases where citations have been issued appear to vary

widely across jurisdictions. One reason for high rates in

many jurisdictions is the lack of systematic followup to

remind defendants of court dates and to take prompt

action when those who receive citations do not appear.

The lack of followup is especially likely to be a problem

in cases where the first court appearance date is more

than a few days in the future and when there has been no

initial verification of the arrestee’s address, employment,

and other ties to the community.

Because citation release is such a valuable mechanism

for minimizing pretrial detention and enabling effective

use of police officers’ time, it is important for policymakers to address the flaws in existing systems that lead to

unacceptably high FTA rates. Five components of a citation release system are especially important to improving

the process:

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• The nature and quality of the information available 

to the decisionmaker. To release an arrestee, the decisionmaker needs to be certain of the individual’s identity

and requires information about the charge, the defendant’s prior record, the existence of any outstanding

warrants, the defendant’s living situation, risks posed 

by the defendant, and methods to address the risks.

Effective utilization of modern information technology

should greatly increase the reliability and completeness

of the information available to citation release decisionmakers and should provide rapid access to essential

information. Direct linkages between the citation

release decisionmaker and a pretrial services program

can help provide essential information quickly.

• Criteria for release. Most citation release programs

limit eligibility to persons charged with nonfelony

offenses who live in the jurisdiction, have no outstanding warrants, have no obvious medical or mental health

problems making them unable to care for themselves,

and have no prior record indicating they could be a

danger to the community. Criteria for release by jail

officials and pre-trial services programs may be broader because the decisionmakers have access to a broader

range of information and the capacity to arrange for

supervised release.

• Qualified decisionmaker. Even though the criteria for 

release may be clear, the release/detention decision

should be made by a trained officer who is knowledgeable about the criteria; familiar with the statutory

framework governing citation release; and able to use

the information to decide whether the person should be 

released before the initial court appearance and, if so,

under what conditions.

• Prompt review by a judicial officer. Under the citation release statutes of many States, persons released on

citation must appear in court within a specified period

so that a judicial officer can initiate formal advisement

of the charges and consider any modification in conditions of release. Often, of course, charges that result in

citation release are resolved at the defendant’s first

court appearance. Optimally, the first appearance will

take place within a few days following issuance of the

citation to maximize the likelihood that the defendant

will appear, minimize case-processing delays, and

ensure that the initial conditions of release set by use

of the citation are subject to judicial review. Particularly

if the first appearance is not scheduled within a few

days, it will be helpful to have a notification or reminder

process in place. This is a logical responsibility for the

pretrial services program but requires good communication links between the citation release decisionmaker

and the program.

• Capacity for rapid followup in event of nonappearance. If a citation release system is to have credibility

with practitioners (including law enforcement officers)

and with defendants, it is important to be able to take

action promptly if a defendant fails to appear. When a

pretrial services program is in place in the jurisdiction,

it should be able to initiate immediate contact with the

nonappearing defendant. Often, this will result in the

defendant coming voluntarily to court; if not, the law

enforcement agency that released the defendant should

quickly execute a warrant. Implementing followup

requires information exchange capability and knowledgeable staff members who are trained to act promptly

when a defendant fails to appear.

As policymakers and practitioners increasingly focus on

the “front end” of criminal case processing, policies governing the exercise of delegated release authority should

receive increased scrutiny. When well crafted and effectively

implemented, delegated release can produce significant

savings in public resources and reduce the unnecessary use

of pretrial detention. When poorly designed and implemented, however, delegated release procedures contribute

to delays and to loss of credibility and respect for the 

justice system.

The Role of Commercial 

Surety Bail

With the development of pretrial services programs,

increased use of citation release, and, in many States,

the enactment of statutes that establish a presumption

of release on nonfinancial conditions, courts across the

Nation can now rely less on commercial surety bail than

in the past (see “Pretrial Services Programs and the Use of

Financial Conditions of Release”). Nevertheless, release on

commercial surety bail occurs in most jurisdictions, and

the option is used in more than a million cases a year.

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63
The fact that significant economic stakes are involved

means that issues related to the use of commercial surety

bail are likely to be at the forefront of policy development

in the pretrial services field for years to come. Five issues

are especially salient:

• Costs to taxpayers of alternative approaches.

• FTA rates.

• Rates of pretrial crime.

• Scope of program responsibilities.

• Consistency with basic justice system goals, including

informed decisionmaking and even-handed justice.

Costs to taxpayers

Proponents of commercial surety bail maintain that a

surety bondsman’s services are free to the taxpayer,

whereas the cost of pretrial services programs is borne by

the taxpayer. Critics of surety bail respond that the surety

bail system is not really “free” to taxpayers, since it

increases the costs incurred by having to maintain larger

jails to hold persons financially unable to post a surety

bond. They note, too, that at least some defendants

(including some who may not be guilty of any charges)

are also taxpayers who will be unable to earn money—

and may lose their jobs—if they are jailed. Critics also

emphasize that reliance on a profit-oriented surety bond

system results in a different kind of cost to the public—

an unacceptable delegation, to a private entity, of the real

authority to determine who obtains pretrial release and

who remains in detention. 

FTA rates

Advocates of commercial security bail maintain that

defendants “released” by pretrial services agencies have

higher FTA rates than defendants released on surety bail.

They cite data from the National Pretrial Reporting

Project (NPRP)5 indicating that FTA rates for defendants

on surety release are lower than the rate for defendants

on conditional release. They add that, since bondsmen

cannot afford to have a high FTA rate, they are careful in

selecting defendants for release and in ensuring that they

appear in court.

There are, however, serious methodological problems in

using the NPRP data to make comparisons between the

performance of defendants released on surety bail and

those released under the supervision of pretrial services

programs. Proponents of pretrial services programs note,

first, that the great majority of defendants on nonfinancial

conditional release have been released by the court, not

by a pretrial release program. Second, they note that the

NPRP data on FTA rates do not identify defendants who

have been interviewed by a pretrial services program,

have been the subject of a program recommendation,

or have been under the supervision of a program. Many

defendants on nonfinancial release may have been placed

there by the court without any involvement of a pretrial

services program and without any provision for supervision. Furthermore, NPRP data from some individual

jurisdictions indicate that the FTA rates of defendants on

pretrial release were lower than the rates of defendants

on surety bail.6

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64

PRETRIAL SERVICES PROGRAMS AND THE USE OF FINANCIAL

CONDITIONS OF RELEASE

The NAPSA Standards oppose the traditional money bail system. Standard V states that “the use of financial conditions of release should be eliminated.” Despite the strong position taken in the Standards and notwithstanding

the history of the bail reform movement, almost half of the State and local programs surveyed by NAPSA in

1989 reported recommending the use of money bail as a condition of release in at least some cases.The survey

did not explore the reasons why this practice has continued, nor did it ascertain the frequency with which the

programs actually recommend the use of money bail. One possibility is that limited resources may restrict a 

program’s capacity to monitor compliance with nonfinancial conditions of release and that money bail is 

recommended in these situations.
The effectiveness of FTA rates of release on surety bail—

in comparison with release pursuant to interviews, recommendations, and supervision by a pretrial services

program—is a complicated subject that warrants further

research. A related topic that also warrants research is the

extent to which the financial incentives cited by advocates of commercial surety bail actually have the desired

effects. Critics of commercial bail have noted that,

although most States have statutes and regulations governing commercial bail and requiring forfeitures of bond

when a defendant absconds, enforcement is often lax and

forfeiture rates are low. They also note that most absconders are brought back to court by the police, not by

bondsmen.

Pretrial crime rates

There are no definitive research findings on the relative

effectiveness, in terms of minimizing pretrial crime, of

release on commercial surety bail compared with release

on the recommendation of a pretrial services program

and under program supervision. The NPRP data show

rearrest rates for defendants on surety bail that are slightly lower than the rearrest rates for defendants on conditional release. However, as with FTA rates, there are 

serious methodological problems with such comparisons

because it is not possible to know, from the NPRP data,

the extent to which pretrial services programs were

involved in interviewing or supervising defendants on

conditional release.

Scope of program responsibilities

Pretrial services programs vary in the scope of the services they provide to courts, but even small-scale programs provide a different and much broader range of

services than commercial surety bondsmen. Surety bail

bondsmen do not provide information needed for judicial

decisionmaking and provide a more limited range of

supervision services.

Equal justice

This is the dimension on which the philosophies and

operations of commercial surety bail bondsmen and pretrial services programs are most diametrically opposed.

Proponents of commercial surety bond take the position

that arrested persons (or their families) should be 

responsible for bail bond fees and costs. As one wrote,

“the person who got himself arrested and incarcerated

has some personal accountability and is, therefore,

responsible to participate in arranging for his own release

and securing the assurances of his future court appearances.” The same proponent notes that “the cost of this

system is underwritten by the defendant and/or others

working with him.”7

However, this position ignores the fact that a significant

number of defendants who post bail—and thus help

underwrite the cost of a commercial surety bail system—

are never found guilty of any charge. In addition, a commercial surety bond system enables defendants who can

post bail to gain freedom before trial, while poor defendants facing similar charges (and with similar prior

records) remain in jail. Perhaps the most serious problem

with reliance on commercial security bail from a justice

system perspective is that it moves responsibility for the

actual release decision away from a publicly accountable

judicial officer to a private entrepreneur whose main

interest is profit and who is accountable to no one.8

Judicial Discretion and Effective

Management of Release/

Detention Decisionmaking

One of the principal challenges facing criminal justice

policymakers and practitioners is how to structure the

exercise of judicial discretion in the release/detention

decisionmaking process. Statutes often list factors that

judicial officers should take into consideration in establishing conditions of release, but the weight to be given

to information concerning potentially relevant factors is

within the judicial officer’s discretion. Different judicial

officers, faced with the same set of facts, often come to

widely different decisions about release conditions, and

the decisions have very different results in terms of detention rates, jail crowding, FTA rates, and rearrest rates.

In the view of some critics, the consequence of maintaining the long tradition of unstructured discretion is likely

to be a continuation of the chronic jail crowding crises so

prevalent in localities across the country, at least until 

fiscal realities demand an alteration of these practices.

They note that, although the advent of pretrial services

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65
programs has made more information available to judicial officers responsible for release/detention decisions,

these officers rarely receive guidance on how to use the

information either in individual case decisionmaking or

in shaping policy to govern the overall systemic impact

of their decisions. Ultimately, however, communities are

going to have to consider the resource implications of

release/detention decisions that are made without clear

policy guidelines to structure the exercise of judicial discretion. In the words of one group of researchers who

have focused on pretrial decisionmaking:

[T]he day of judicial license in confinement decisionmaking without regard for impact on the justice

system or on local resources may soon be over. Even

with Federal assistance, local jurisdictions do not

have the resources to construct sufficient jail capacity

to keep up with poorly managed judicial processes

and endless popular policies to increase the use of

confinement. There are fiscal as well as rational 

limits to the privilege and responsibility attached to

judicial discretion in justice processing. Discretion

needs to be reasonably exercised and effectively

managed, with clear goals, adequate information,

and suitable alternatives.9

Developing viable policies in this area will require taking

a system perspective, rather than focusing solely on decisionmaking in individual cases. One major challenge for

the future is how to structure judicial discretion in a sensible fashion that takes account of the systemic impact of

decisions on individual cases. For the trial court, and for

other institutions and agencies in the community that are

concerned about the related problems of jail crowding,

community safety, and pretrial release practices, several

sets of questions must be addressed with respect to the

role of the judiciary in the management of release/detention decisionmaking:

• Goals. What should courts and communities seek to

accomplish in this policy area? To what extent, if at all,

should courts take into account jail crowding and related

public resource issues (1) in individual case decisionmaking during the pretrial period, and (2) in considering

the formulation of policies that could structure the exercise of judges’ discretion in release/detention decisionmaking? Broadly stated, it is important to develop goals

for an effective pretrial release/decisionmaking process

in six main areas:

— Maximizing personal liberty.

— Providing for consistent decisionmaking in cases 

involving similarly situated defendants. 

— Ensuring community safety.

— Ensuring that released defendants appear for 

scheduled court dates.

• — Avoiding jail crowding.

— Avoiding new jail construction and related costs.

Is it possible for courts to work collaboratively with

others in establishing goals for pretrial decisionmaking

that address all of these areas and that seek to achieve

systemic objectives through the totality of

release/detention decisions?

• Mechanisms for accomplishing goals. If unfettered

judicial discretion is a major contributor to jail crowding

and unnecessary use of pretrial detention, are there

viable mechanisms for structuring discretion that will

be acceptable to the courts and to individual judicial

officers? Can the very promising pretrial release guidelines approach pioneered in Philadelphia (see the sidebar “Using Research To Help Develop Knowledge and 

Shape Pretrial Release Supervision Policy and Practice”

in chapter 3) be replicated elsewhere? Are there other

alternatives to structure the exercise of judicial discretion in a fashion that will achieve core policy goals? Are

there other mechanisms, in addition to those focused

on the exercise of discretion in the release/detention

decision, that are essential components of a sound

pretrial release/detention decisionmaking system?

• Responsibilities of the court with respect to monitoring jail population levels and minimizing case

processing delays. Should courts pay attention to the

population (and population makeup) of the jail? How,

if at all, should courts and individual judicial officers

adjust their release/detention policies to take account of

jail population levels and the length of pretrial confinement? Should courts adopt case-processing standards

and practices that will minimize delays in cases involving both released and detained defendants to help ensure

community safety and return to court (for released

defendants), and to help reduce jail crowding and shorten the period of pretrial incarceration for defendants

detained in jail?

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• Responsibilities of the court with respect to development and use of options for supervising “high risk”

defendants and defendants with special needs. If

judicial officers are to exercise discretion effectively,

they need to have a far broader range of effective supervisory options than is available in most jurisdictions.

What role can and should courts play in the development of an appropriate range of supervisory options for

defendants released prior to trial? How can courts and

judicial officers learn about the effectiveness of different supervisory options for different categories of

defendants? (See “Measuring the Overall Effectiveness

of Pretrial Release Systems.”) 

Research Needs

With the exception of the research on pretrial release

guidelines, there has been very little empirically grounded research on pretrial release/detention decisionmaking

practices and outcomes since the mid-1980s. There is not

even an accessible base of current information on the

operations of pretrial services programs or on pretrial

release/detention decisionmaking in the jurisdictions

within which these programs function. The last national

survey of pretrial services programs was conducted by

the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies in

1989. In the decade that has passed since the survey was

completed, little research has been done on the issues the

survey identified, and the survey findings have not been

updated.

Every 2 years, the Bureau of Justice Statistics sponsors

research that tracks a sample of felony cases filed in

urban trial courts. The resulting reports provide some

interesting aggregate data on arrests, release rates, FTA

rates, and rearrest rates and can be helpful in identifying

national trends. However, the reports do not present data

on individual jurisdictions, descriptions of how local systems actually operate, or cross-jurisdictional comparisons

that would be helpful in identifying jurisdictions that

have well-functioning systems.

Research is expensive, and in the pretrial release field

there are difficult methodological problems that must 

be overcome—particularly to compare jurisdictions.

Jurisdictions vary widely with regard to the types of

release systems they have, the way they define similar

phenomena, their operational procedures, the types of

statistical information they gather, and many other factors

that make it difficult to conduct cross-jurisdictional

research. Even within a single jurisdiction, records 

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67

MEASURING THE OVERALL EFFECTIVENESS OF PRETRIAL RELEASE SYSTEMS

Researcher John Goldkamp has suggested that one possible way of measuring the effectiveness of a jurisdiction’s

pretrial release system is to look at the percentage of defendants who (1) are released, and (2) do not fail to

appear for scheduled court dates or commit crimes during the pretrial period.Thus, if all of the defendants

arrested in a jurisdiction could be released without a subsequent failure to appear or rearrest during the pretrial

release period, pretrial release in the jurisdiction would be 100-percent effective. If 90 percent of all defendants

were released and 80 percent did not fail to appear or get rearrested, the “effectiveness rating” would be measured as 90% x 80% = 72%. If only 50 percent were released, and 86 percent of those defendants did not fail to

appear or get rearrested, the effectiveness rating would be 50% x 86% = 43%.a

One advantage of this approach is that it focuses attention on achieving high overall release rates as well as 

on minimizing the FTA and rearrest rates of defendants who are released.As Goldkamp has noted, ineffective

release results from needless detention of defendants who, if released, would neither fail to appear nor commit

pretrial crime, as well as from mistakenly releasing defendants who abscond or commit crimes.

a. Goldkamp, J.S., H.R. Gottfredson, P.R. Jones, and D.Weiland, Personal Liberty and Community Safety, New York and London: Plenum Press,

1995: 148–153, 272–273; Goldkamp, J.S.,“Judicial Responsibility for Pretrial Release Decisionmaking and the Information Role of Pretrial

Services,” Federal Probation 57 (1) (March 1993): 31. See also Clarke, S.H.,“Pretrial Release: Concepts, Issues, and Strategies for Improvement,”

Research in Corrections 1 (3) (October 1988): 21.
relevant to evaluating pretrial release program effectiveness are typically kept by several different agencies, and

sometimes it can be difficult to gain access to them.

Despite the methodological problems, however, it is

important to begin building a base of current knowledge

about issues of pretrial release and detention at all jurisdictional levels:

• At either the local or national level, the starting point

for developing a viable research strategy is with descriptions of overall pretrial release/detention systems in single jurisdictions, coupled with quantitative data showing

the number and proportion of cases, by case type category, that follow each major path. Without good descriptions of these systems—descriptions that show the full

range of release processes and supervision options and

that indicate which alternatives are employed under

what circumstances—it is impossible to know how any

single program or practice (for example, release on

recognizance, various kinds of supervised release, surety

bail, or the jail itself) fits into the overall system. Sound

descriptions are an essential foundation for research on

the relative effectiveness of different alternatives for specific categories of defendants.

• At the single-jurisdiction level, it is essential to know

the extent to which each major pretrial option is used,

and for what types of cases and defendants, to measure 

the comparative effectiveness of existing release/detention options. In addition to examining questions about

comparative release rates, FTA rates, and rearrest rates,

researchers should also study some of the operational

variables that may bear upon effectiveness. For example,

are there particular components of supervised release

in a jurisdiction that contribute to sharply reduced rates

of pretrial crime and nonappearance? If so, what are

they? Could some defendants now in detention in other

jurisdictions be safely released if these supervision

techniques were used? Are there some types of supervisory options that could be used to meet the needs of

defendants who have special needs and do not fit the

conventional profile of “good risks”?

• At the national level, pretrial services program leaders

can work with justice system policymakers and practitioners and with national funding agencies to shape and

define a national agenda that could include both focused

research in single jurisdictions and multijurisdictional

comparative research. A national research strategy

should include at least the following elements:

— Ascertaining the views of persons in the field 

regarding key issues and alternative program 

models, supplementing the information in this 

report.

— Developing baseline descriptive data on local 

• systems, programs, and key issues through surveys,

observation, and interviews.

— Refining the criteria for measuring detention/release 

• effectiveness that have been used in prior research.

• — Formulating workable definitions of key terms (for 

example, release rate, FTA rate, bench warrant) to 

enable cross-jurisdictional comparisons of local 

systems and individual pretrial services programs in 

terms of critical measures of effectiveness. 

— Selecting specific local system models (or program 

models) to be studied.

— Formulating a detailed plan for measuring the 

relative effectiveness of the different models, taking 

into account the inevitable problems in comparative 

analysis that will be caused by variations in even 

basically similar models. 

— Developing an organizational base (or set of bases) 

for the conduct of research by researchers who have 

proven methodological capabilities and are familiar 

with the subject matter.

• — Providing for the research results to be published 

and widely disseminated in readable, nontechnical 

• formats, including use of the Internet.

Demonstration Programs

Demonstration programs can provide an opportunity to

test the viability of combining new technology with programmatic innovations to achieve ambitious system

improvement goals focused on better “front-end” decisionmaking. It should be possible to design and evaluate

demonstration programs that incorporate cutting-edge

information technology, rapid charging by experienced

prosecutors working from well-prepared police incident

C HAPTER 5: L OOKING T OWARD THE F UTURE

68
reports, and the most modern practices of pretrial services programs. For example, a demonstration project

could incorporate the following:

• Using the best current practices in gathering and verifying information about newly arrested defendants. 

• Preparing risk assessments for consideration by judicial

officers who work within a framework that structures

the exercise of discretion in making release/detention

decisions. 

• Supervising defendants (including medium- to high-risk

defendants) in the community.

• Using new technologies (e.g., drug testing, electronic 

monitoring) as appropriate.

• Providing or arranging for services for defendants with 

special needs (for example, substance abuse treatment,

medical or psychiatric care, temporary shelter).

• Following up immediately on any failure to appear for 

a scheduled court appearance.

• Providing information to the court and the probation 

department that is relevant to sentencing and postadjudication supervision.

The evaluation component of a demonstration program 

or set of programs is critically important, not simply to

learn whether a program is effective (and, in particular,

whether it is more effective than alternative approaches),

but to learn why. Developing and evaluating demonstration

programs naturally complements a comprehensive

research strategy and will also help strengthen education

and training efforts at the national and local levels.

Education and Training

Although the initial stages of criminal case processing

are crucially important, there are few vehicles for educating practitioners and policymakers about the policy issues

involved in front-end decisionmaking, the legal and historical framework within which the policy issues arise,

or the advantages and disadvantages of alternative policy

choices.

Some training for pretrial services practitioners does

take place at national conferences (for example, the

annual conference of the National Association of Pretrial

Services Agencies) and at meetings of State associations.

Additionally, a number of pretrial services agencies 

conduct in-house training. However, cross-disciplinary

training is rarely provided, and many key decisionmakers

whose policy and individual case decisions have a major

impact on system operations—including police officials,

jail officials, judicial officers, court staff members, prosecutors, defense counsel, social services providers, and

city and county executives—have never had a chance to

(1) learn about the effects of their decisions on other system actors or on such systemic problems as jail crowding,

(2) explore the range of pretrial release and supervision

alternatives, or (3) consider the pros and cons of alternative approaches to organizing the front-end information

gathering and decisionmaking process.

If pretrial services programs are to reach or approach

their potential, it is important to develop a full range of

education and training programs at every level—national,

State, and individual local programs. At the national level,

one promising development is the establishment of a new

Pretrial Justice Institute organized under the auspices of

the Pretrial Services Resource Center. Established with

the assistance of startup grant funding from the Bureau 

of Justice Assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice,

the institute develops and conducts training for pretrial

ser-vices practitioners and for policymakers and practitioners whose decisions affect the quality of justice at

the pretrial stages of criminal cases. (See chapter 6,

“Where to Get Additional Help.”)

One of the challenges for policymakers and practitioners

who are concerned about the future of pretrial services

and improvement of front-end decisionmaking is to develop a broad range of education and training opportunities.

The new Pretrial Justice Institute may serve as a focal

point for innovation in the field, but the challenge is one

that warrants response from justice system agencies, professional associations, and funding bodies at every level

of government.

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69
Notes

1. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Juvenile Felony

Defendants in Criminal Court, Washington, DC:

U.S. Department of Justice, 1998: 1.

2. Ibid., 4–5 (tables 8 and 10).

3. Whitcomb, D., B.P. Levin, and M.J. Levine, Citation

Release, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,

National Institute of Justice, 1984: 17–19.

4. Ibid., 20–21.

5. The name of this project has been changed. It is now

the State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) program of

the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice

Statistics.

6. Kennedy, S., and D.A. Henry, Commercial Surety Bail:

Assessing Its Role in the Pretrial Release and Detention

Decision, Washington, DC: Pretrial Services Resources

Center, 1996: 3–4.

7. See “Improvements in Pretrial Release,” undated paper

submitted to the Justice Management Institute by the

National Association of Bail Insurance Companies

(NABIC) with letter from Jerry Watson, Counsel for

NABIC, to Bruce Beaudin, dated November 5, 1996.

8. Kennedy and Henry, Commercial Surety Bail, 5.

9. Goldkamp, J.S., M.R. Gottfredson, P.R. Jones, and 

D. Weiland, Personal Liberty and Community Safety,

New York and London: Plenum Press, 1995: xiii.

C HAPTER 5: L OOKING T OWARD THE F UTURE

70
A number of resources are available to policymakers 

and justice system practitioners who want to learn more

about pretrial services programs generally or about how

to improve specific aspects of pretrial services program

operations. This chapter provides information on the 

following:

• National standards addressing pretrial services issues.

• National nonprofit organizations that provide training 

and technical assistance on pretrial issues. 

• Potential Federal funding sources for research and 

demonstration projects.

• National and State associations of pretrial services 

agencies and pretrial practitioners. 

• Local and State pretrial services programs that can be 

contacted for information. 

• Literature in the field.

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

71

KEY POINTS

Sources of information or direct assistance for jurisdictions and individual practitioners interested in improving

pretrial release/detention decisionmaking and related services include the following:

• Standards adopted by major national organizations.

• National nonprofit organizations that provide training and technical assistance.

• Federal agencies that provide assistance through grants and other mechanisms.

• National and State associations.

• Local and State pretrial programs.

• Books, monographs, and articles.

Chapter 6

Where to Get Additional Help

National Standards 

Three national organizations have developed standards

that address issues in the pretrial services field:

• National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies 

(NAPSA) Standards. Performance Standards and 

Goals for Pretrial Release and Diversion. Washington,

DC: National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies,

1978; second edition, 1998. Considered the principal

set of national standards in the field, the 13 standards

cover policy, organizational, and operational issues. 

• American Bar Association (ABA) Standards.

American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice.

Chapter 10, “Pretrial Release.” Chicago: American Bar

Association (revision approved in 1985; commentary

added in 1988). In 1999, the Criminal Justice Section of

the ABA established a committee to review and make 

recommendations for revision of the standards.

• National District Attorneys Association (NDAA)

Standards. National Prosecution Standards, Alexandria,

VA: National District Attorneys Association, 1991.
National Nonprofit

Organizations That Provide

Training and Technical Assistance 

The principal national organization dedicated to improving pretrial release/detention decisionmaking processes is

the nonprofit Pretrial Services Resource Center (PSRC).

Established in 1977, PSRC maintains a clearinghouse on

pretrial issues and practices, conducts research, publishes

articles, distributes a newsletter (The Pretrial Reporter)

six times a year, and provides a wide range of training

and technical assistance services. In 1999, PSRC established a Pretrial Justice Institute with a separate board of

regents. The institute’s mission is to develop educational

curriculums focused on key issues in the pretrial services

field and to conduct training programs for pretrial services practitioners and others whose work affects the

quality of pretrial justice. For more information, contact:

Pretrial Services Resource Center

D. Alan Henry, Director

1325 G Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20005

Phone: 202–638–3080

Web page: www.pretrial.org

Other nonprofit organizations working in the criminal

justice field also provide technical assistance to jurisdictions that are interested in improving pretrial processes.

For more information, contact:

Justice Programs Office, American University

Joseph A. Trotter, Director

Brandywine Building, Suite 660

4400 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.

Washington, DC 20016–8159

Phone: 202–885–2875

The Justice Management Institute

Barry Mahoney, President

1900 Grant Street

Denver, CO 80207

Phone: 303–831–7564

Potential Federal Funding

Sources 

Several U.S. Department of Justice agencies are potential

sources of funding for research, technical assistance,

training, or demonstration projects focused on pretrial

services and related issues. For more information about

potential funding opportunities, contact:

Bureau of Justice Assistance

Office of Justice Programs

U.S. Department of Justice

810 Seventh Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20531

Phone: 800–421–6770

Web page: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bja

National Institute of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

U.S. Department of Justice

810 Seventh Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20531

Phone: 202–307–2942

Web page: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij

Community Corrections Division

National Institute of Corrections

320 First Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20534

Phone: 800–995–6423

Web page: www.nicic.org

The State Justice Institute (SJI), a nonprofit organization

created by Federal statute, is a potential source for funding projects designed to improve pretrial processes. SJI

makes grants to support innovative projects and provides

technical assistance to help improve the administration of

justice in State court systems. For more information, contact:

State Justice Institute

1650 King Street

Alexandria, VA 22314

Phone: 703–684–6100

Web page: www.clark.net/pub/sji/home.htm

C HAPTER 6: W HERE TO G E T A DDITIONAL H ELP

72
National and State Associations 

The principal professional association in the field is 

the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies

(NAPSA) with more than 500 members. NAPSA publishes a quarterly newsletter (NAPSA News) and membership directory and conducts an annual conference and

training institute. For more information, contact:

Cindy Fraleigh, NAPSA Services Director

NAPSA Service Office

P.O. Box 280808

San Francisco, CA 94128–0808

Phone: 650–588–0212

or

John DuPree, President

NAPSA

c/o Seventh Judicial Circuit Court

251 North Ridgewood Avenue

Daytona Beach, FL 32114–4492

Phone: 904–239–7780

Web page: www.napsa.org

There are a number of State associations of pretrial 

services agencies or pretrial practitioners, including 

associations in California, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota,

New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The State associations sponsor conferences and training programs and 

provide opportunities for networking and exchange of

information and ideas by pretrial services practitioners.

Local and State Pretrial Services

Programs and Practitioners 

The following agencies have generously provided information for this study and may be contacted for further

information or assistance:

Maricopa County Pretrial Services Agency

Perry M. Mitchell, Administrator

Superior Court of Arizona

111 South Third Avenue

West Court Building, 2d Floor

Phoenix, AZ 85003

Phone: 602–506–1304

Fax: 602–506–2260

Pima County Pretrial Services

Kim Holloway, Director

110 West Congress Street, 8th Floor

Tucson, AZ 85701

Phone: 520–740–3310

Fax: 520–620–0536

Berkeley Own Recognizance Project

Susan Bookman, Director

2400 Bancroft Way

Berkeley, CA 94704

Phone: 510–548–2438

Fax: 510–841–0132

San Mateo Bar Association

Roman Duranczk, Administrator

303 Bradford Street, 2d Floor

Redwood City, CA 94063

Phone: 415–363–4181

Fax: 415–369–9643

Pretrial Services, 16th Judicial Circuit of Florida

Robin Rooks, Director

323 Fleming Street, 2d Floor

Key West, FL 33040

Phone: 305–292–3469

Fax: 305–292–3515

Kentucky Pretrial Services and Court Security

John Hendricks, General Manager

100 Millcreek Park

Frankfort, KY 40601–9230

Phone: 502–573–1419

Fax: 502–573–1669

Philadelphia Pretrial Services Agency

Nathaniel A. Johnson, Director

121 North Broad Street, 2d Floor

Philadelphia, PA 19138

Phone: 215–683–3700

Fax: 215–683–3703

Harris County Pretrial Services Agency

Carol Oeller, Director

1310 Prairie, Room 170

Houston, TX 77002

Phone: 713–755–5440

Fax: 713–755–2929

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

73
D.C. Pretrial Services Agency

Susan W. Shaffer, Director

400 F Street N.W., Room 310

Washington, DC 20001

Phone: 202–727–2911

Fax: 202–727–9852

Literature in the Field 

There is an extensive body of literature on issues of 

bail, pretrial release, and provision of pretrial services.

Because an understanding of the history of bail and the

bail reform movement is important for addressing contemporary issues in the field, the books, monographs,

and articles listed below include leading relevant works

dating back to 1963.

Administrative Office of the United States Courts,

Federal Corrections and Supervision Division.

Monograph on Pretrial Services Supervision.

Washington, DC: Administrative Office of the United

States Courts, 1992.

American Bar Association. Criminal Justice Standards,

Chapter 10: Pretrial Release. Washington, DC: American

Bar Association, 1985.

Ares, C.E., A. Rankin, and H. Sturz. “The Manhattan

Bail Project: An Interim Report on the Use of Pre-Trial

Parole.” New York University Law Review 38 (1963): 67.

Austin, J., B. Krisberg, and P. Litsky. “The Effectiveness

of Supervised Pretrial Release.” Crime and Delinquency

31 (1985): 519.

Beaudin, B.D. “Bail in the District—What It Was; Is; and

Will Be.” American University Law Review 20 (1971): 432.

Cadigan, T.P. “Technology and Pretrial Services.”

Federal Probation 57 (March 1993): 48–53.

Carver, J.A. “Pretrial Drug Testing: An Essential Step in

Bail Reform.” Brigham Young University Journal of

Public Law 5 (1991).

Clarke, J., and D.A. Henry. The Pretrial Release

Decision-Making Process: Goals, Current Practices and

Challenges. Washington, DC: Pretrial Services Resource

Center, 1996.

Clarke, S.H. “Pretrial Release: Concepts, Issues, and

Strategies for Improvement.” In Research in Corrections.

Washington, DC: Robert J. Kutak Foundation and

National Institute of Corrections, 1988.

Foote, C. “The Coming Constitutional Crisis in Bail.”

University of Pennsylvania Law Review 113 (May–June

1965): 959, 1125.

Freed, D.J., and P.M. Wald. Bail in the United States:

1964. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice and

Vera Foundation, Inc., 1964.

Goldkamp, J.S. “Judicial Responsibility for Pretrial

Release Decisionmaking and the Information Role of

Pretrial Services.” Federal Probation (March 1993):

28–35.

Goldkamp, J.S. Two Classes of Accused: A Study of Bail

and Detention in American Justice. Cambridge: Ballinger

Publishing Co., 1979.

Goldkamp, J.S., and M.D. White. Restoring Accountability

in Pretrial Release: The Philadelphia Pretrial Release

Supervision Experiments. Philadelphia: Crime and Justice

Research Institute, 1998.

Goldkamp, J.S., M.R. Gottfredson, and S. MitchellHerzfeld. Bail Decisionmaking: A Study of Policy

Guidelines. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,

National Institute of Corrections, 1981.

Goldkamp, J.S., M.K. Harris, and M. White. Pretrial

Release Guidelines and Detention During the First Year

of Pretrial Release Guidelines in Philadelphia: Review

and Recommendations. Philadelphia: Crime and Justice

Research Institute, 1997.

Goldkamp, J.S., P.R. Jones, and D. Weiland. Personal

Liberty and Community Safety: Pretrial Release in the

Criminal Court. New York and London: Plenum Press,

1995. 

Hall, A., E. Gaynes, D.A. Henry, and W.F. Smith.

Pretrial Release Program Options. Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1984.

Institute on the Operation of Pretrial Release Projects.

Bail and Summons, 1965. New York: National

Conference on Bail and Criminal Justice, 1966.

C HAPTER 6: W HERE TO G E T A DDITIONAL H ELP

74
Kennedy, S., and D.A. Henry. Commercial Surety Bail:

Assessing Its Role in the Pretrial Release and Detention

Decision. Washington, DC: Pretrial Services Resource

Center, 1996.

Kennedy, S., D.A. Henry, J. Clark, and J. Juszkiewicz.

Pretrial Release and Supervision Program Training

Supplement. Washington, DC: Pretrial Services Resource

Center, 1996.

Lotze, E., J. Clark, D.A. Henry, and J. Juszkiewicz. 

The Pretrial Services Reference Book. Washington, DC:

Pretrial Services Resource Center, 1999. 

Mahoney, B., et al. An Evaluation of Policy-Related

Research on the Effectiveness of Pretrial Release

Programs. Denver, CO: National Center for State Courts,

1975.

Mullen, J., et al. Pretrial Services: An Evaluation of

Policy Related Research. Cambridge: Abt Associates Inc.,

1974.

National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice

Standards and Goals. Task Force Report: Corrections.

Chapter 4, “Pretrial Release and Detention.” Washington,

DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973.

National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies.

Performance Standards and Goals for Release and

Diversion. Washington, DC: National Association of

Pretrial Services Agencies, 1978; second edition, 1998.

National Conference on Bail and Criminal Justice.

Proceedings and Interim Report of the National

Conference on Bail and Criminal Justice. Washington,

DC: U.S. Department of Justice and Vera Foundation,

Inc., April 1965.

National District Attorneys Association. National

Prosecution Standards. Alexandria, VA: National District

Attorneys Association, 1991.

Ryan, D.B. “The Federal Detention Crisis: Causes and

Effects.” Federal Probation 57 (March 1993): 54–63.

Segebarth, K. Pretrial Services and Practices in the

1990s: Findings From the Enhanced Pretrial Services

Project. Washington, DC: National Association of

Pretrial Services Agencies, 1991.

Singer, L.R. “The Bail Problem: Release or Detention

Before Trial.” In Law and Order Reconsidered: Report 

of the Task Force on Law and Law Enforcement to the

National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of

Violence. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing

Office, 1970.

Thomas, W.H., Jr. Bail Reform in America. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1976.

Thomas, W.H., Jr., et al. Pretrial Release Programs.

Washington, DC: National Institute of Law Enforcement

and Criminal Justice, 1977.

Toborg, M.A. Pretrial Release: A National Evaluation 

of Practices and Outcomes. Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1981.

Toborg, M.A., et al. Commercial Bail Bonding: How It

Works. Washington, DC: Toborg Associates, Inc., 1986.

U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Pretrial Services Programs: Program Brief. Washington,

DC: Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1990.

Visher, C.A. “Using Drug Testing to Identify High-Risk

Defendants on Release: A Study in the District of

Columbia.” Journal of Criminal Justice 18 (1990).

Wice, P.B. Freedom for Sale: A National Study of

Pretrial Release. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co.,

1974.

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

75
Appendix A

Kentucky Pretrial Services Agency—Forms, Instructions, and 

Court Rule

A.1 Defendant Interview Form

A.2 Warning and Points Scoring Form

A.3 Domestic Violence Addendum

A.4 Supreme Court Rule on Confidentiality of Pretrial Services Agency Records

P RETRIAL S ERVICES P ROGRAMS : R ESPONSIBILITIES AND P OTENTIAL

77
A.1 Defendant Interview Form

78
A.2 Warning and Points Scoring Form

79
INTERVIEW ADDENDUM

9/94

NAME: ____________________________________ Interviewer: ______________________

Date: ____________ Time: _________

DOB: _______________________ SSN: _________________________

How long have you lived with the person/spouse? ____ yrs ____ mos

Do you have any children from this relationship? Yes ____ No _____ number _____

Do you have children by previous relationships? Yes ____ No _____ number _____

Are you presently separated? Yes ____ No ____ How long? ____

Which one of you arranged for a new residence? ________________________________________

List new address and phone number: __________________________________________________

Do you believe this relationship will continue? Yes ____ No ____

Previous spouses/personal relationships: Yes _____ No _____ List: ________________________

___________ Do you pay child support on children from other relationships? Yes _____ No ____ 

What is your income per week? __________________________

Have you or your spouse filed for divorce? Yes _____ No _____ Date Filed ________

What are your current terms for support/visitation if they exist? ____________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

Education Level: (Circle highest one completed.)

Grade School High School/GED College Graduate

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 +

Military Experience: Yes ____ No ____ Branch: ___________

Type/Date of Discharge: ______________________________________

Have you ever been arrested out of the state? Yes _____ No ____ List date, charge, and location

________________________________________________________________________________

Have you been or are you going to counseling? Yes _____ No _____

If so, what type, where and how often: _______________________________

Was counseling court ordered? Yes ____ No ____

Was counseling for substance abuse? Yes ____ No ____

Did you observe domestic violence in your home while growing up? Yes ____ No ____

What type? ______________________________________________________________________

Were you subjected to abuse when growing up? Yes ____ No ____

What type? ______________________________________________________________________

A.3 Domestic Violence Addendum

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Verified: (For point calculation)

Y N

Have you ever been arrested for Domestic Violence or Assault? Yes _____ No ____

Location, year and conviction:

Are you currently under an EPO, DVO, CO or RO? Yes _____ No _____ Who is the 

affiant? __________________ Where did it occur? _______________________________ 

Relationship: __________________________ Have any of the above been filed against you

in the past? Yes _____ No _____ When/Where: _____________________________ Does a

divorce decree keep you from being around someone involved? Yes _____ No _____

Do you drink alcohol? Daily _____ Weekly _____ Monthly _____ Occasionally _____

Explain: ____________________________________________ Are you currently taking 

prescription medication? Yes _____ No _____ What type and for what? _____________ 

_________________________________ Do you feel like you could use alcohol or drug 

treatment? Yes _____ No _____

If released, where will you live? _______________________________________________

With whom? ___________________________ Address: ____________________________

______________________ Telephone: Yes _____ No _____ (___) ___________________

POINT TOTAL FOR INTERVIEW ADDENDUM

-5 Convicted of any crime of violence.

-5 Verified alcohol or drug dependency by agency policy.

-5 Had an EPO, DVO, CO, or RO filed against them in the last five years.

-10 Violated an EPO, DVO, CO, or RO within the last two years.

-15 Charged with, violating an EPO, DVO, CO, or RO while in effect.

___ TOTAL points carried forward to interview point total Category C

MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS: __________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

A.3 Domestic Violence Addendum, continued

81
INSTRUCTIONS FOR INTERVIEW ADDENDUM

Rcr 4.08 makes the information obtained for the interview process, and subsequent contact,

confidential. The interview addendum is an extension of the interview and is therefore 

protected under that same provision.

The Kentucky Pretrial Services Interview Form has been revised and expanded to 

incorporate information and criteria to assist the judiciary of this state make informed decisions

pertaining to release of individuals charged with offenses involving domestic issues. The 

Interview Addendum concept has been researched with known experts in the field of domestic 

violence on a national basis. The questions and format are designed to extract critical data about 

relationships, current and past obligations, and the history of violence in those relationships.

Factors involving the most critical issues have been weighted and assigned numeric values

consistent with our current objective point system. These issues are designed to be verified

through personal interview techniques, contact with verifiers, and available record checks. This 

form will evolve over time as our current interview form and policies have in the last eighteen

years. Your attention to the detail involved, the importance of the issue, and your professionalism 

will determine the success of this process.

The first issue is to identify the cases in which the addendum is needed. Any case that 

involves violence, or threats of violence, in a domestic relationship will require the completion 

of the addendum. This can be determined by the nature of the charges on the citation or warrant,

the presence of the JC-3 in support of the citation, and the description of the offense. If these 

sources are not available a question has been added (which must have a response on every 

interview completed) asking “Are the current charges domestic related?”. If the defendant admits 

the domestic nature of the offense then the addendum block will be checked and the form 

completed. YOU SHOULD NOT COMPLETE THIS FORM UNLESS MANDATED BY THIS 

POLICY.

NOTE: The offense charged could be limited to Disorderly Conduct but the offense 

description on the citation could explain a domestic call made to a public place resulting 

in an arrest. This type of situation will prompt the need for the addendum.

NOTE: KRS 403.720 defines family member as “spouse, including a former spouse, a 

parent, a child, a stepchild, or any other person related by consanguinity or affinity 

within the second degree; and member of an unmarried couple who are living together 

or have formerly lived together.”

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The addendum should begin with the name, date of birth, and social security number of 

the defendant. This will assist in the matching of the addendum to the proper interview in the 

event they are temporarily separated. The interviewer should also sign, date, and time the 

addendum.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED WITH THE PERSON/SPOUSE?

We are looking for the total length of time a common residence has been shared 

with the person in years and months.

DO YOU HAVE ANY CHILDREN FROM THIS RELATIONSHIP?

We are looking for significant ongoing bonds between the individuals and the 

number involved.

DO YOU HAVE ANY CHILDREN BY PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS?

We are looking for deeper obligations on the defendants part, the extent of the 

obligations, and a potential pattern of conduct that may be experienced should 

this relationship end.

ARE YOU PRESENTLY SEPARATED?

We are looking for the current status of the relationship. The time period involved 

may be an indication of significant changes over a very short time span that is 

resulting in conflict, or conversely a continuing pattern of conduct over an 

extended period.

WHICH ONE OF YOU ARRANGED FOR A NEW RESIDENCE?

We are looking for who has been forced to change their lifestyle through the 

process of separation. If the other individual has been forced to seek shelter it 

may be an indication of the extent of the violence they are attempting to escape. 

If the defendant has been forced to move it may have heightened their anger 

over the displacement.

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LIST NEW ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER?

If the defendant has knowledge of the location of the other party’s address this 

may indicate both the desire and ability to seek them out. Information on the 

citation may indicate the offense happened in close proximity of the new 

residence. If the defendant is aware of the phone number of the other party it 

increases access to contact, harass, and intimidate those involved. The lack of 

knowledge may indicate the secretive approach the other individual has 

undertaken to protect themselves from future violence.

If the defendant has relocated it may give an indication of their perspective on the 

separation. An address at a motel may indicate a very recent relocation,

heightening the chance of confrontation, or the perception on the defendants part 

that the separation will be of short duration.

DO YOU THINK THIS RELATIONSHIP WILL CONTINUE?

We are looking for what the defendant believes the future of the relationship 

holds. Violence in domestic relationships is generally viewed as a mechanism of 

control over the other individual. If the defendant believes that this control is 

permanently lost, it is potentially the most dangerous time for the individual 

subjected to violence.

PREVIOUS PERSONS/SPOUSES: LIST

We are looking for the existence of previous relationships, and the names involved 

for potential court orders. This may be an indicator of past spouses seeking relief 

from violence or other noncompliance with court process.

DO YOU PAY CHILD SUPPORT ON CHILDREN FROM OTHER RELATIONSHIPS?

We are looking for the defendants willingness to comply with financial obligations 

ordered by the court.

WHAT IS YOUR INCOME PER WEEK?

We are looking for the defendants ability to meet these and potential future 

obligations. Inability to meet these requirements may induce significant stress to 

all of these relationships.

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HAVE YOU OR YOUR SPOUSE FILED FOR DIVORCE?

We are looking for an indication of violence subsequent to the defendant’s 

realization that the formal relationship is in the process of dissolution. This may 

indicate an attempt to regain control of the individual before final court action 

has occurred, or violence due to the permanent loss of control. Either of these 

possibilities should raise serious concerns about the escalating potential for violence.

DATE FILED?

We are looking for the proximity of the current act to the date of filing or 

notification. Short time frames may again be a sign of desperation and long 

periods of time an unrelenting attitude on the defendants part to return things to 

“normal”. If the divorce involves the other person, and it is now final, the date 

filed should be used to indicate the date of the divorce decree is issued and final.

WHAT ARE YOUR CURRENT TERMS FOR SUPPORT, AND VISITATION, IF THEY

EXIST?

We are looking for the level of obligation the defendant holds in this matter. 

Visitation also brings the two parties into ongoing contact, and potentially 

conflict, which may need to be addressed in any release decision.

EDUCATION LEVEL:

We are looking for the level of education of the defendant.

MILITARY EXPERIENCE:

We are looking for potential weapons training.

BRANCH:

We are looking for the segment of the armed forces in which the defendant served. 

This will assist in confirmation of information if required.

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TYPE/DATE OF DISCHARGE:

We are looking for the method of release from the military (honorable,

dishonorable, general, medical etc.) and date of the discharge. A dishonorable 

discharge with a recent date could be further indication of instability. Any 

discharge occurring recently, coupled with violence, may be an indication of 

turmoil and instability on the defendants part.

HAVE YOU BEEN OR ARE YOU GOING TO COUNSELING?

We are looking for an indication that the defendant has recognized problems exist,

and seeks assistance to resolve the situation. This may also relate to a potential 

type of release.

IF SO, WHAT TYPE, WHERE, AND HOW OFTEN:

We are looking to identify if the counseling is related to both parties in this matter 

seeking to resolve the problems, the success of these attempts (if joint), etc. If 

individual counseling is being sought this may be an indication of the defendant 

dealing individually with domestic problems, and the success of these attempts.

WAS COUNSELING COURT ORDERED?

We are looking for resistance to dealing with the problem. Court-ordered 

counseling would indicate the seriousness of the situation has resulted in formal 

court action.

WAS COUNSELING FOR SUBSTANCE ABUSE?

The presence of substance abuse, by the defendant, heightens the possibility of 

violence due to diminished personal control.

DID YOU OBSERVE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN YOUR HOME WHILE GROWING UP?

Most studies of violent behavior, and its origin, indicate the presence of violence 

during childhood years leads to similar behavior as an adult.

86
87

WERE YOU SUBJECTED TO ABUSE WHEN GROWING UP? WHAT TYPE?

Again, the presence and nature of abuse during this period may lead to that 

behavior as an adult.

The following questions are to be asked of the defendant and verified with the 

individuals listed on the primary interview. You may want to seek additional 

verifiers to verify this addendum.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ARRESTED FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE OR ASSAULT?

LOCATION AND YEAR

We are looking for arrest information that will indicate the time, location, and 

nature of violence on the defendant’s part (THIS IS NOT LIMITED TO VIOLENCE 

IN DOMESTIC SITUATIONS). If the defendant indicates conviction on any 

violent crime points can be deducted without court.

ARE YOU CURRENTLY UNDER AN EPO, DVO, CO, OR RO?

We are looking for their acknowledgment that a court order is in existence.

WHO IS THE AFFIANT?

We are looking for the name of the individual that brought the complaint 

against them. Does that information relate to the current charge?

WHERE DID IT OCCUR?

Where was the order issued?

RELATIONSHIP:

We are looking for the relationship to the party in the complaint.
88

HAVE ANY OF THE ABOVE BEEN FILED AGAINST YOU IN THE PAST?

WHEN/WHERE:

We are looking for a history of court orders pertaining to violence, timeframe,

and location.

DOES A DIVORCE DECREE KEEP YOU FROM BEING AROUND SOMEONE

INVOLVED?

We are looking for formal dissolutions, by the court, affecting physical restrictions 

on the defendant.

DO YOU DRINK ALCOHOL? DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY, OCCASIONALLY? EXPLAIN.

We are looking for alcohol use and its frequency.

ARE YOU CURRENTLY TAKING PRESCRIPTION MEDICATION? WHAT TYPE AND

FOR WHAT?

We are looking for prescription drug usage, specifically mood altering medication,

to cope with stress, depression etc. This may be an indication of an inability to 

cope with current circumstances and lead to confrontations while under the 

influence of prescribed medications. Medical conditions are secondary considerations.

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU COULD USE ALCOHOL OR DRUG TREATMENT?

We are looking for an acknowledgement of dependency from the defendant that will 

assist the court in release decisions. An affirmative answer may be a strong indicator 

that the individual will not have full control over themselves if released unsupervised.

IF RELEASED WHERE WILL YOU LIVE? WITH WHOM? ADDRESS? PHONE NUMBER?

We are looking for a specific and verifiable address that the defendant will live 

while the case remains active (or the order remains in effect). Who they will live 

with and how they can be contacted. NOTE: A RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS MUST 

BE VERIFIED WITH THE INDIVIDUAL WHERE THEY WILL BE STAYING. WITHOUT

THIS VERIFICATION THE DEFENDANT CANNOT BE PROGRAM ELIGIBLE.
89

POINTS

-5 CONVICTED OF ANY CRIME OF VIOLENCE

This may be deducted regardless of the victim’s relationship to the defendant,

has no time limit, and may be deducted for each conviction involving violence 

(even within a single case).

-5 VERIFIED ALCOHOL OR DRUG DEPENDENCY BY AGENCY POLICY

This may result in deduction if the defendant indicates they feel they could use 

alcohol or drug treatment, a verifier indicates they may need treatment, or there 

are more than two convictions related to alcohol or drug involvement within the 

last five years.

-5 HAD AN EPO, DVO, CO, OR RO FILED AGAINST THEM IN THE LAST 

FIVE YEARS

This will result in deductions regardless of the outcome of the hearing. If an EPO

becomes a DVO after court ruling this will be treated as one occurrence. 

Multiple EPO’s within the time frame will result in multiple deductions.

-10 VIOLATED AN EPO, DVO, CO, OR RO WITHIN THE LAST TWO YEARS

Any indication of violation of court orders within the time frame will result in 

this deduction. Multiple occurrences will result in multiple deductions.

-15 CHARGED WITH VIOLATING AN EPO, DVO, CO, OR RO WHILE IN 

EFFECT

If the defendant is charged with violating an order, while active, this category 

will be used.

TOTAL POINTS CARRIED FORWARD TO INTERVIEW POINT 

CATEGORY C

Tally points on addendum and list in point total “C”, and determine final 

eligibility.
A.4 Supreme Court Rule on Confidentiality of 

Pretrial Services Agency Records

Rcr 4.08

Confidentiality of pretrial services agency records

Information supplied by a defendant to a representative of the pretrial services agency 

during his initial interview or subsequent contacts, or information obtained by the pretrial 

services agency as a result of the interview or subsequent contacts, shall be deemed confidential

and shall not be subject to subpoena or to disclosure without the written consent of the defendant

except in the following circumstances:

(a) information relevant to the imposition of conditions of release shall be presented to 

the court on a standardized form when the court is considering what conditions of release to

impose;

(b) information furnished by the defendant to the pretrial services agency and recorded on 

a completed interview form shall be furnished to law enforcement officials upon request if the

defendant fails to appear in court when required;

(c) information concerning compliance with any conditions of release imposed by the 

court shall be furnished to the court upon its request for consideration of modification of 

conditions of release or of sentencing or of probation;

(d) information relevant to sentencing or probation shall be furnished to the court upon its

request for consideration in imposing sentence or probation;

(e) at its discretion, the court may permit the probation officer, for the purpose of 

preparing the presentence investigation report, and the defense attorney to inspect the completed

interview form;

(f) any person conducting an evaluation of the pretrial release program may have access 

to all completed interview forms upon order of the Supreme Court.

At the beginning of his initial interview with a representative of the pretrial services 

agency, the defendant shall be advised of the above uses of information supplied by him or

obtained as a result of information supplied by him.

Amended by Order 84-2, eff. 1-1-85; prior amendments. eff. 11-1-78, 6-19-76: adopted 

eff. 1-1-63.

90
Appendix B

District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency—Interview Forms,

Reports to the Court, and Summary of Community Supervision 

and Drug Treatment Programs

B.1 Defendant Interview Jacket, With Warning

B.2 Report to the Court for Use in Determining Conditions of Release

B.3 Summary of Community Supervision and Drug Treatment Programs—Requirements,

B.3 Sanctions, Eligibility Criteria, and Placement Procedures

B.4 Report to the Court on Released Defendant’s Compliance With Curfew Conditions

B.5 Report to the Court on Drug Test Results of Released Defendant

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B.1 Defendant Interview Jacket With Warning

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B.1 Defendant Interview Jacket With Warning, continued

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B.1 Defendant Interview Jacket With Warning, continued

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B.1 Defendant Interview Jacket With Warning, continued

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B.2 Report to the Court for Use in Determining Conditions of Release

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B.2 Report to the Court for Use in Determining Conditions of Release, continued

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B.3 Summary of Community Supervision and Drug Treatment Programs—

Requirements, Sanctions, Eligibility Criteria, and Placement Procedures
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B.4 Report to the Court on Released Defendant’s 

Compliance With Curfew Conditions
B.5 Report to the Court on Drug Test Results of Released Defendant

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Appendix C

Harris County (Houston),Texas, Pretrial Services Agency Forms

C.1 Defendant Interview Form

C.2 Special Needs Referral Form

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C.1 Defendant Interview Form
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C.1 Defendant Interview Form, continued
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C.2 Special Needs Referral Form
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Appendix D

Monroe County (Rochester), New York, Pretrial Services Corporation—

Point Scale Scoring Instructions

The Monroe County Pretrial Services corporation uses a point scale to provide a 

basis for recommendations to the court concerning release of defendants. A net score of five or

more verified points qualifies a defendant for pretrial release under program supervision. Points 

are awarded or subtracted in accordance with the following instructions:

Residence:

Points are given for steady residence in Monroe County.

Score the following way:

3 points If a person has resided steadily in Monroe County for at 

least 1 1/2 - 3 years

2 points Steady residence in Monroe County for 12 months to 2 

years 5 months

1 point Steady resident for 6 months to 11 months

0 points Residence is less than 6 months. Put slash through the 

points.

If a person has maintained a residence in Monroe County but has left to attend 

school, serve in the military, attend Job Corps, to be hospitalized, or go to prison,

and has returned to Rochester, points should be scored as if he/she were a steady 

resident. However, if a person resided here steadily and left to travel around 

(other than a vacation), to work elsewhere, or to live, the number of points should 

be scored as if he/she were a steady resident. However, if a person resided here 

steadily and left to travel around (other than a vacation), to work elsewhere, or to 

live, the number of points given would depend on the amount of time that he/she 

has resumed residency here.

If a defendant lives in a county surrounding Monroe, he/she may still be eligible 

for Pretrial release recommendation. If a person works here, attends school 

regularly here, has immediate family here, and has a verifiable address to return 

to in the other county, then his/her ties would be strong enough to constitute 

points for a recommendation.

If a person lives, works (or receives another means of support), and has family or 

reliable contacts, in Orleans, Genesee, Livingston, Wayne or Ontario counties and 

is within 10 miles of the Monroe County line, then score the points as if he/she 

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lived in Monroe. It is extremely important, when making the recommendation to 

the courts, to tell the court that the defendant lives in an outlying county. A map 

is included to assist you in determining the 10-mile radius (see Appendix). It is 

important to ask the family/friends to assist with transportation to and from court.

Family Situation

3 points If a person is living with immediate family. Immediate family is defined as 

follows: spouse, parent(s), grandparents, sibling(s), children, girlfriend or 

boyfriend (for 2 years or longer), foster family, group home (if it is other than

transitional), or persons that have acted as the primary family unit for the 

defendant for most of his/her life.

2 points If a person is living with a friend or alone and has regular contact (at least 

biweekly) with his/her immediate family.

If a person is living with extended family that has not acted as the primary family

unit for the defendant (e.g., aunt, cousin, in-law).

1 point If a person lives alone or with friend(s) and has occasional contacts with family

(once a month or less) or whose contact is unrelated but can verify information

needed.

If a defendant has lived with a girlfriend/boyfriend for less than 2 years, and has

no other family contact.

0 points No contacts in the community.

Employment

3 points Defendant is currently employed, and has been steadily employed full-time for the

past year. Employment does not have to be with the same employer, but must be

continuous.

2 points Defendant is currently employed and has had continuous full-time employment

for the past 6 months to 1 year.

1 point Defendant is currently employed full-time for less than 6 months, works 

temporary or part-time employment, is supported by an outside source (family,

welfare, social security, workmen’s compensation, unemployment insurance).

0 points No visible means of support, or odd jobs.
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School

3 points Defendant is currently enrolled in an academic vocational, or alternative 

education program and attends regularly. If he/she is in a work-study program,

score three points for school and score job points according to other situation

(usually support of family, welfare, etc.).

2 points If a defendant’s last date of attendance at school was within 6 months of arrest

date and the defendant is now employed or in a job-training program.

1 point If a defendant’s last date of attendance in school was within 3 months prior to the

arrest and the defendant is not currently employed or in any training program.

0 points No current school attendance or within recent past as defined on preceding page.

Prior Conviction

Score only for felony arrests

-2 points 2 prior felony convictions

-1 point 1 prior felony conviction

Discretionary Points

ALWAYS CHECK WITH SUPERVISOR BEFORE FORGIVING A DISCRETIONARY POINT

The following are appropriate considerations:

- a severe medical condition that requires immediate attention

- the fact that the person has kept all court appearances while under Pretrial

release
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Appendix E

Philadelphia Municipal Court and Common Pleas Court—Pretrial

Release Guidelines Form and Worksheet

E.1 Pretrial Release Guidelines Matrix and Release Order, With Standard Conditions

E.2 Pretrial Services Worksheet for Risk Classification

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E.1 Pretrial Release Guidelines Matrix and Release Order,

With Standard Conditions
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E.2 Pretrial Services Worksheet for Risk Classification
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Appendix F

U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Pretrial Services

Agency—Advisement of Rights Form

F.1 Notice of Rights—English Language

F.2 Notice of Rights—Spanish Language

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F.1 Notice of Rights—English Language
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F.2 Notice of Rights—Spanish Language