The Impact of Pretrial Release Programming on Rearrest: Results from an Eastern Pennsylvania County Sample

ABSTRACT

Pretrial release programs are relatively common and service a broad range of offenders. Despite their widespread use, there is little research examining the impacts of pretrial release programming on offender recidivism after pretrial. This study analyzed data from 286 individuals who participated in an Eastern Pennsylvania county’s adult probation and parole pretrial supervision program between 2014 and 2016. Relevant predictors of pretrial failure as well as predicting arrest 36 months after the pretrial program were examined. Results suggested that criminal history and education level are the main predictors of pretrial failure. Those with more education and with no criminal history are less likely to fail supervised pretrial release. Unexpectedly, those with higher education were more likely to be arrested 36 months after pretrial. Younger individuals were slightly more likely to be arrested, and those who failed to complete the pretrial program were 2.5 times more likely to be arrested after pretrial. Overall, these findings provide support for the potential role of pretrial release programming in reducing recidivism beyond the pretrial phase. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Pretrial
• probation
• recidivism
• community corrections

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The LSI-R is a third-generation risk assessment tool which uses both static and dynamic risk factors to predict recidivism. There are 54 questions across 10 domains of criminogenic needs (Andrews et al., 2006) obtained through semi-structured interviews.

2. The ORAS- CST is a fourth-generation risk assessment tools for predicting recidivism. It is considered fourth generation, because in addition to all elements included in the LSI-R, it also includes case management for setting effective treatment goals. The ORAS has many variations including the ORAS-PAT (for pretrial) and the ORAS-CST which is used specifically for predicting violation of probation and parole (E. Latessa et al., 2009).