NCJ Number
100450
Date Published
1985
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This study examines the extent to which the 1982 Federal Pretrial Services Act is being implemented and whether Federal district courts are properly reporting data to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.
Abstract
The act requires that Federal district court judges and magistrates receive verified background information on all defendants charged with felonies or misdemeanors prior to defendants' bail hearings. Data reported by the Federal district court for calendar year 1984 indicate that 21,158 of 43,851 eligible defendants (48 percent) were contacted by the courts before bail hearings as intended by the act. According to judiciary officials, all eligible defendants are not being contacted prior to hearings because most courts have insufficient staff to implement the program fully, some judicial officers do not support the program and do not believe all defendants need to be interviewed, and pretrial services offices are not always notified of eligible defendants. The judiciary has requested funds from the Congress for 307 additional probation positions to implement the pretrial services program in fiscal year 1986. It has also undertaken initiatives to improve the use of existing resources for pretrial services. A review of five district courts indicates the information reported to the Administrative Office is accurate; however, the pretrial data have not been subjected to a systemwide reliability test. Tabular data. (Author abstract modified)