Risk of Revocation: Assessing Correlates of Failure in a Pretrial Services Program

Abstract

Personal recognizance (PR) bonds, often an option in pretrial services programs, allow defendants to be released while awaiting trial without financial backing. This offers some relief for jail overcrowding and permits the defendant the ability to maintain responsibilities of daily life. Not everyone released, however, successfully participates in these programs. This study seeks to analyze correlates and predictors of various types of non-compliance that could result in pretrial release forfeiture, operationalized by failure to appear in court and incurring new charges while on PR bond. This dependent variable is analyzed with several predictor variables that are excluded from traditional risk assessment tools and criminal history to determine the offenders most at risk for failure on pretrial release through a PR bond. Findings suggest the presence of several protective factors for program failure that are not typically considered when making release decisions such as having a passport and being the primary caregiver of children. The implications of these effects as well as variables that were collected but unable to be included in the present study are discussed.

Keywords:

• Pretrial services
• pretrial release
• failure to appear
• bail

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 All defendants that receive services from this pretrial services program are considered released on personal recognizance bonds. Some of these bonds have court ordered supervision conditions set by a judge while others do not. This determination is made based on the risks and needs of the defendant.

2 Technical violations were available but excluded from the current analysis as a form of program failure. This decision was made for two reasons. First, the outcome is rare occurring in less than 10 percent of the sample. Second, it is likely the outcome is rare because revocation of bond for a technical violation is not always immediate or absolute, where technical violations are not applied consistently and therefore data surrounding technical violations was not entered consistently. Pretrial risk assessment tools, including the CPAT, commonly define risk level categories by assessing public safety (new charges) and court appearance rates, which is the definition utilized in the present study.

3 These data were selected despite the changes because the time frame selected allowed for all of the court cases to be completed which is necessary to determine successful program completion. It will take several years before the new policies can be analyzed due to COVID-19 pausing court processes and the need to allow for most court cases to run to completion.