NCJ Number
238600
Date Published
March 2012
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This study examined whether the pretrial detention of defendants charged with dangerous or violent crimes increased in the District of Columbia (DC) following the DC Council's passage of the Omnibus Public Safety and Justice Amendment Act of 2009 ("the Act"), which makes it easier to detain such defendants.
Abstract
The study found that there was a steady increase in the probability of pretrial detention for defendants charged with dangerous and violent offenses from 2007 through 2010, even without associated weapons charges. This trend was not found in the pretrial detention of defendants with associated weapons charges. The probability of pretrial detention for defendants charged with dangerous and violent offenses seems to show an additional increase in 2010 after passage of the Act; however, researchers' ability to distinguish the trend in pretrial detention before and after passage of the Act was somewhat limited by the relatively short data series (1 year) following passage of the Act. This report also poses important questions left unanswered by the current study, such that additional study is warranted. The current study examined administrative records of defendant cases that were filed primarily in DC's Superior Court in the 3 years preceding passage of the Act in December 2009 and for the year following. The data addressed cases filed between January 2007 and December 2010. Administrative data were obtained from the Pretrial Services Agency (PSA) automated database, which tracks all cases brought to the PSA for initial pretrial interviews. 2 tables, 3 figures, and 6 references