A National Model for Pretrial Risk Assessment - Pretrial Justice Initiative
With the goal of creating a safer, fairer, and less costly pretrial justice system, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF) yesterday announced the development of a national pretrial risk assessment tool. In the research brief, Developing a National Model for Pretrial Risk Assessment,
LJAF laid out the need for the new tool, described how it was
developed, and expressed their desire for it to be used in
jurisdictions across the country.
“This research represents an historic step forward in the advancement
of safe, fair and effective justice across the land,” PJI’s executive
director Tim Murray said. “For the first time jurisdictions will be able
to make informed pretrial decisions while enhancing public safety and
reducing needless pretrial incarceration.”
In their report, LJAF highlighted the flaws in the current system: 12
million people are booked into local jails each year, and jails filled
with more than 60% of pretrial defendants, costing the country over $9
billion annually. Data collected over the past two years by LJAF show
that too often high risk and/or violent defendants are released, while
low-risk, non-violent defendants are detained. Most shocking is the
finding that pretrial detention of low-risk defendants increases the
likelihood of future crime.
LJAF’s data-driven, user-friendly risk assessment tool — the Public
Safety Assessment-Court (PSA-Court) — provides a risk score for three
categories: new criminal activity, new violent crime, and failure to
appear in court. The foundation anticipates that the new tool will help
judges “easily, cheaply, and reliably quantify defendant risk.”
The tool is already in use in 120 counties in Kentucky with plans to
roll out in additional pilot sites in the near future. LJAF has the
ambitious goal of having every judge in America using a “data-driven,
objective risk assessment within the next five years.“
Click here to view the full report or here to see the LJAF press release.
Kentucky Journal of Criminal Justice Education & Research
