NCJ Number
76058
Date Published
1979
Length
180 pages
Annotation
The first in a five-volume series focusing on screening and classification in criminal justice conducted by the American Justice Institute and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, this survey report addresses pretrial release.
Abstract
In conducting the survey, the staff made over 350 telephone contacts with classification experts, research organizations, and justice system agencies. These contacts, combined with an extensive review of the existing literature, reveal a recent trend toward formalizing offender classification, establishing more explicit criteria for screening decisions, and shifting emphasis from subjective judgments to reliance on standardized instruments in the classification and decisionmaking process. This sourcebook includes three main sections: a state-of-the-art summary, site reports, and telephone interview summaries. The first section describes the current classification instruments and practices that are employed at the pretrial release stage. It includes recommendations about development and implementation of classification instruments. The site visit reports provide an indepth look at currently used instruments and how they operate in specific agencies. The survey sample for this report included 27 pretrial classification programs in 24 different sites. The telephone interview summaries contain succinct descriptions of agencies and their use of classification tools. Twenty interview summaries are provided. Survey results suggest that classification instruments are used far more often for release on recognizance decisions than for any other type of case decision in the pretrial area. Instruments used by the majority of programs are based on the Vera Point Scale. The site visit to the pretrial release program of Santa Clara County, Calif., revealed that approximately 22 percent of all felons and 85 percent of all misdemeanants screened are released before trial. Through a telephone interview it was determined that the Denver pretrial services program uses a point scale to classify pretrial defendants for eligibility for release on their own recognizance. Footnotes, tables, and point scale criteria and forms are included. For related documents, see NCJ 76059-62.