Crime During the Pretrial Period - A Special Subset of the Career Criminal Problem

• NCJ Number: 76716
• Author(s): M A Toborg; B Forst
• Date Published: 1979
• Length: 16 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Justice; US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Corporate Author: INSLAW; Lazar Institute
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Prepared for Career Criminal Workshop, September 20-21, 1979.

Annotation

This report presents preliminary findings from a study of pretrial criminality in eight jurisdictions and the results of an analysis of bail practices in Washington, D.C., with suggestions for reducing pretrial criminality.

Abstract

The LEAA-funded national evaluation of pretrial release (Lazar Study) selected a random sample of defendants at each of eight sites and tracked their records from arrest until final case disposition. While 16 percent of the released defendants were rearrested while awaiting trial on the original charge, about 30 percent of these were rearrested more than once. For the rearrested subjects, the original charge was related more often to the subsequent charge for economic, drug, public morality, and public order crimes than to crimes against persons. In general, rearrested defendants were originally charged with more serious crimes than those not rearrested, were more likely to have been involved with the criminal justice system at the time of the original arrest, had more extensive prior criminal records, and were more likely to be living alone or with parents and to be unemployed. The study of bail practices examined the use of bail and pretrial detention in Washington, D.C., and found that high money bond was used rather than preventive detention as the primary means of protecting the community. However, the number of felony defendants released prior to trial in 1974 and rearrested was three times that of the defendants who failed to appear in court. These and other findings suggest that the rearrest rate could be reduced by replacing unimportant factors, such as local residence, in bond decisions with such crucial factors as drug use and third party custody. Further remedies might include bail revocation and harsher sanctions for arrestees who are already involved with the criminal justice system, consecutive sentences for defendants guilty of pretrial crimes, and a shortening of the pretrial period. Data tables and reference notes are included.