NCJ Number
156874
Date Published
1994
Length
66 pages
Annotation
The Monroe County, New York, Jail holds pretrial detainees to assure that they appear in court and also holds for up to a year individuals who have been convicted of a criminal act and sentenced to jail.
Abstract
In evaluating the jail population, the extent of overcrowding, and the feasibility of community-based corrections, the Jail Utilization System Team in Monroe County found that jail admissions in 1993 were down by 196 from 1992 but that the average length of stay increased from 28.21 to 30.25 days. This resulted in a 6 percent increase in the average daily jail population between 1992 and 1993. The team also discovered that the jail held a significant number of nonviolent minor offenders; the jail pretrial population was 60 percent felony in 1980 and 60 percent misdemeanor in 1993. In addition, the team found that minor offenders with bail amounts ranging between $1 and $5,000 had a median jail stay of 2 to 5 days longer than felony charged defendants. It was taking longer to screen and process in-custody defendants charged with minor crimes than those charged with more serious felony offenses. The team further determined that over 30 percent of the jail's pretrial space was occupied by prisoners waiting to be admitted to the State prison system or being held as technical or parole violators with new charges. Due to system processing problems in the Monroe County Jail, the team concluded that jail expansion is not an appropriate response to overcrowding. The Total Quality Management (TQM) approach is recommended to reduce pretrial length of stay in jail, to develop a full range of graduated restrictions for nonviolent minor offenders, to provide judges with the information they need to make appropriate caseload decisions, and to screen criminal cases so that violent offender cases are disposed of in a timely way. Potential areas for reducing case processing time are identified. Punishment, treatment, and control options and recommendations for a criminal justice management information system are described. Appendixes contain supplemental information on the TQM approach to public safety and on a survey of judges in Monroe County. Tables and figures