Report

Incarceration Trends Presumption of Innocence Pretrial and Bail Pretrial and Jails Pretrial Justice Pretrial Services October 12, 2022

Cages Without Bars

Patrice James, Illinois Black Advocacy Initiative
James Kilgore, MediaJustice
Gabriela Kirk, Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University
Grace Mueller, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts
Sarah Staudt, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts
Emmett Sanders, Challenging E-Carceration
LaTanya R. Jackson Wilson, Shriver Center on Poverty Law

Pretrial Electronic Monitoring Across the United States


Across the United States each year, hundreds of thousands of people accused but not yet convicted of crimes are required by the courts to participate in electronic monitoring programs. These people are fitted with a locked, tightened ankle shackle, which often tracks every move they make.


Pretrial electronic monitoring programs represent a fast-growing type of incarceration that imposes significant harm and burdens on people who are subject to it. We interviewed people subject to monitoring, program administrators, judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys across select jurisdictions to better understand how pretrial electronic monitoring is used.

Publication

Bail Community Engagement Crime Data Analysis Featured Jurisdictions Human Toll of Jail Jail Populations Pretrial and Bail Pretrial and Jails Pretrial Justice Pretrial Services Racial Disparities July 1, 2022

Expanding Supervised Release in New York City

Safety and Justice Challenge, Center for Court Innovation

In 2015, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation launched the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), a multi-year initiative to reduce populations and racial disparities in American jails. To advance knowledge development grounded in a research agenda that explores, evaluates, and documents site-specific strategies to safely and effectively reduce jail populations and address racial and ethnic disparities, the Foundation engaged the Institute for State & Local Governance (ISLG) at the City University of New York (CUNY) to establish and oversee an SJC Research Consortium. Consortium members are nationally renowned research, policy, and academic organizations collaborating with SJC sites to build an evidence base focused on pretrial reform efforts.

Under New York City’s Supervised Release Program (SRP) individuals awaiting trial are released under community supervision to ensure their return to court, instead of via bail or pretrial detention. Defendants are eligible for the citywide SRP if they meet specific criteria, including arrest charge type, estimated risk status, and community ties. Towards the goal of reducing the jail population, New York City expanded the City’s Supervised Release Program (SRP) several times by altering the eligibility criteria to include a wider range of individuals. The first large expansion of SRP since 2016 occurred at the beginning of June 2019. A subsequent program expansion occurred in December 2019 as New York State prepared for 2020 bail reform legislation to go into effect.

In an effort to better understand the impact of expansion of SRP as a jail-reduction strategy, ISLG and the SJC Research Consortium funded the Center for Court Innovation to examine the impact of the June 2019 expansion. The Center conducted a time series analysis to determine if observed post-expansion SRP enrollment and/or detention rates significantly differed from predicted rates. The study found that the expansion increased SRP rates across racial groups and reduced detention for non-violent felony offenses, though not for misdemeanor offenses. In addition, the findings show increased use of SRP for misdemeanor offenses, which may suggest net-widening.

Key takeaways:

  1. Increasing program participation does not always decrease detention. For small program expansions (like the 2019 expansion) to have a true impact on detention, these initiatives must target serious crimes that are likely to be detained.

  2. Large changes are needed for large impact. Larger expansions, especially those that are driven by legislative change (like the December 2019 expansion in preparation for bail reform), can have a greater impact on detention compared to smaller expansions.

  3. Targeted efforts to reduce racial disparities are necessary. Disparities are not automatically impacted by increasing program participation and decreasing detention across the board. To reduce racial disparities, targeted efforts must be made.

Together, the findings suggest that the SRP expansion reduced detention for some offenses and highlight the importance of measuring the impact of program implementation and expansion to inform future work and jail reduction efforts in New York City and other jurisdictions.

Report

Jail Costs Jail Populations Pretrial and Bail May 13, 2021

Removing Barriers To Pretrial Appearance

Evelyn F. McCoy, Azhar Gulaid, Nkechi Erondu, and Janeen Buck Willison at The Urban Institute

This case study, part of a series highlighting work supported by the Safety and Justice Challenge Innovation Fund, examines the experiences of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, and Hennepin County, Minnesota, which implemented strategies to reduce rates of failure to appear (FTA) in court and to reduce their respective jails’ pretrial populations. The Tulsa County Public Defender’s Office partnered with Uptrust, a California-based technology firm that builds software to help people navigate and successfully exit the criminal justice system, to implement a two-way text messaging app that reminds clients of upcoming court dates and reduces barriers to court appearance by connecting clients to an embedded social services case manager who helps them access services and assistance with basic needs such as transportation. The Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office, the Hennepin County Public Defender’s Office, and the Hennepin County Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee (CJCC) partnered with Hitch Health, a local health care technology company that connects patients with ride services to medical appointments, to implement Court Ride, which provides free rides to court and court-related appointments to defendants who lack reliable access to transportation.

Report

Data Analysis Jail Populations Pretrial and Bail May 13, 2021

Connection to Care in a Municipal Jail Setting

Jesse Jannetta and Travis Reginal, the Urban Institute

This brief examines the C2C pilot in Long Beach and its efforts to improve connections to behavioral health and social services for people who meet the definition of “high-frequency utilizers” (HFUs) of the jail, as defined by the City of Long Beach. It is one in a series of briefs supported by the Innovation Fund, an initiative sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge. It situates the C2C pilot within Long Beach’s broader strategy to reduce jail incarceration among HFUs, outlines strengths and challenges in C2C’s implementation, and provides lessons for other localities seeking to better coordinate services for people who frequently cycle in and out of jail.

Report

Data Analysis Jail Populations Pretrial and Bail November 19, 2020

Dollars and Sense In Cook County

Don Stemen and David Olson (Loyola University Chicago)

This report by researchers at the Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy, and Practice at Loyola University Chicago analyzes the impact of bond reform in Cook County on felony bond court decisions, pretrial release, and crime. Researchers evaluated a 2017 general order by Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County Timothy Evans reevaluating the use of monetary bail in Cook County. Using independent data, researchers found that Judge Evans’ general order increased the number of people released pretrial and was not associated with any significant change in new criminal activity, violent or otherwise, and was not associated with any change in the amount of crime in Chicago after 2017.