KAH Webb, SA Riley, MT Wells

Pretrial risk assessment tools are used in jurisdictions across the country to assess the likelihood of "pretrial failure," the event where defendants either fail to appear for court or reoffend. Judicial officers, in turn, use these assessments to determine whether to release or detain defendants during trial. While algorithmic risk assessment tools were designed to predict pretrial failure with greater accuracy relative to judges, there is still concern that both risk assessment recommendations and pretrial decisions are biased against minority groups. In this paper, we develop methods to investigate the association between risk factors and pretrial failure, while simultaneously estimating misclassification rates of pretrial risk assessments and of judicial decisions as a function of defendant race. This approach adds to a growing literature that makes use of outcome misclassification methods to answer questions about fairness in pretrial decision-making. We give a detailed simulation study for our proposed methodology and apply these methods to data from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services. We estimate that the VPRAI algorithm has near-perfect specificity, but its sensitivity differs by defendant race. Judicial decisions also display evidence of bias; we estimate wrongful detention rates of 39.7% and 51.4% among white and Black defendants, respectively.

Cornell University Pre-publication paper: 2023. 33p,

By Christopher Lowenkamp, Matthew DeMichele, and Lauren Klein Warren

This report presents findings related to impacts associated with criminal justice improvements underway in Lucas County, Ohio. The current report, however, focuses on impacts related to one of Lucas County’s initiatives - the use of the Public Safety Assessment (PSA). The report shows that Lucas County made serious reductions to the number of people booked into jail during the post-PSA period. For the entire seven-year study period, of those released pretrial, 27% experienced a failure to appear (FTA), 17% were arrested for any offense, and 5% were arrested for a violent offense during the pretrial period. There were reductions in the pretrial outcomes between the pre- and post-PSA periods: a six-percentage point decrease in FTA rates (30% vs. 24%), a five-percentage point decrease in new criminal arrest (NCA) rates (20% vs. 15%) and a two-percentage point decrease in new violent criminal arrest (NVCA) rates (6% vs. 4%). The results demonstrate that the PSA meets standards of predictive validity. For the three scales, we found that the Area Under the Curve (AUC) values are in the good (NCA) and fair (NVCA and FTA) ranges, there is incremental increase in failures as scores increase, and significant increases in the predicted likelihood of failure as scores increase across a series of regression models. The report shows that the PSA meets validity standards used for criminal justice assessments, and the report includes tests for predictive bias.

Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research, 2020. 84p.

By Cindy Redcross and Brit Henderson with Luke Miratrix Erin Valentine

Arnold Ventures’ Public Safety Assessment (PSA) is a pretrial risk assessment tool that uses nine factors from a defendant’s history to produce two risk scores: one representing the likelihood of a new crime being committed and another representing the likelihood of a failure to appear for future court hearings. The PSA also notes if there is an elevated risk of a violent crime.

Over 40 jurisdictions across the country have implemented the PSA. Mecklenburg County, North Carolina was one of the first; it began using the PSA in 2014, switching from another risk assessment. This study presents the effects of the PSA and related policy changes in Mecklenburg County. The first report in the series describes the effects of the overall policy reforms on important outcomes. A supplemental second report describes the role of risk-based decision making in the outcomes and describes the effects of the PSA on racial disparities in outcomes and among different subgroups.

Overall, the findings are notable from a public-safety perspective: Mecklenburg County released more defendants and did not see an increase in missed court appointments or new criminal charges while defendants were waiting for their cases to be resolved.

New York: MDRC, 2019. 42p.

By Melanie Skemer, Cindy Redcross, Howard Bloom

On any given day in the United States, nearly half a million people are detained in jail while awaiting the resolution of their criminal cases, many because they cannot afford to pay bail. Bail is meant to ensure that defendants appear for court dates and are not arrested for new charges while they wait for their cases to be resolved. However, research has shown that setting bail as a condition of release can lead to unequal treatment and worse outcomes for defendants who do not have the ability to pay, regardless of the risk they pose. Additionally, systemic racial inequities throughout the criminal justice system mean that communities of color are disproportionately affected by cash bail and pretrial detention.

In 2016, New York City rolled out a citywide program known as Supervised Release (SR). SR offers judges the option of releasing defendants under supervision in lieu of setting bail. Defendants released to SR are required to report to program staff members regularly and are offered reminders of their court dates, case management support services, and voluntary connections to social services. The city developed the SR program to reduce the number of defendants detained in jail because they could not afford to pay bail, while at the same time maintaining court appearance rates and public safety. The findings presented in this report offer strong evidence that SR achieved these overarching goals.

New York: MDRC, 2020.185p.

By Andrea Woods and Portia Allen-Kyle

Every year, millions of people are arrested, required to pay money bail they cannot afford, separated from their families and loved ones, or absent from their jobs--subjected to long periods of incarceration based on the mere accusation of a crime. This all occurs while people are presumed innocent under the law. Black and brown people, their loved ones, and those without the economic resources to thrive suffer the worst harms. The money bail system is in dire need of an overhaul.

New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 2019. 15p.

By Olive Lu, Erica Bond, Preeti Chauhan and Michael Rempel

For this report, DCJ analyzed how the Original Reforms and the Amended Reforms would have impacted pretrial releases for 2019 criminal cases in New York City. The report provides findings about how pretrial outcomes, including the number and proportion of cases where bail was set, would have changed under the Original and Amended Reforms. It also provides analyses of how outcomes would have differed by borough, by charge types, and by demographics (race/ethnicity, sex, and age).

Future research from DCJ will examine the actual impacts of bail reform on release outcomes in 2020. DCJ will also examine pretrial release outcomes and how they have changed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, nationwide protests calling for policing and criminal legal system reforms, and rising rates of certain types of violent crime in New York City.

New York: The Data Collaborative for Justice (DCJ) at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 2022. 48p.

By Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research (APPR)

The pretrial system has, in recent years, become a focus of attention for governments, civil rights advocates, the media, and nonprofit organizations. Understandably so: it is the front door of the criminal legal system, and decisions made in the early stages of a criminal case have major impacts on everything that follows. As Berkeley law professor Caleb Foote wrote in 1956, “Pretrial decisions determine mostly everything.” This adage is true for individual cases: whether or not someone is detained while awaiting trial has major impacts on whether they are found guilty, whether they are sentenced to incarceration, and how long those sentences are.Unnecessary detention can also disrupt lives, leading to lost jobs and housing, family instability, and even increased likelihood of rearrest. It is also true for the system as a whole: virtually all of the growth in the U.S. jail population in the 21st century is attributable to pretrial incarceration. Housing people before trial costs county and state governments at least $14 billion annually. So, it is critical that we get pretrial decisions right. But in most of the country, the pretrial system is deeply flawed. There is an overreliance on custodial arrest instead of citations or summonses; release and detention are determined more by money than by judicial officers making intentional decisions about public safety or flight; defense counsel is not present, despite someone’s liberty being at stake; and pretrial services focus on monitoring rather than supporting people in the community. In addition, like the rest of the criminal legal system, the pretrial system suffers from systemic racism, with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) disproportionately arrested and booked, subjected to higher financial conditions of release, and more frequently detained. These practices result in many people who could safely be released remaining in jail, often for long periods. And they do not enhance—and frequently undermine—community safety and well-being. Improving the pretrial system requires a comprehensive approach; we cannot focus on a single decision point or a single agency. And the problems will not be fixed with a single solution such as an actuarial assessment tool or even the abolishment of financial conditions. Rather, we need to look at the system as a whole, involve policymakers from all agencies, and engage the community meaningfully in the improvement process.

Silver Spring, MD: Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research (APPR) , 2022. 29p.