NCJ Number
139815
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 56 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1992) Pages: 41-49
Date Published
1992
Length
9 pages
Annotation
An empirical analysis of Lake County's (Illinois) Pretrial Bond Supervision Program (PTBS) was conducted to identify certain policy and procedural implications.
Abstract
Various trends and developments of Lake County's PTBS were examined: (1) the growth of PTBS between 1986 and 1990; (2) who gets placed on bond supervision by offense type, felony seriousness, and type of supervision; (3) the use of electronic monitoring; and (4) the success and failure rates of PTBS defendants. The data suggest that the PTBS has become an accepted and established pretrial release alternative: the number of bond supervision evaluations increased by 148 percent between 1986 and 1990, and the total number of defendants released to Pretrial Services for supervision increased by 192 percent. Other findings include a decline in the rate of electronic monitoring and a positive correlation between the offense seriousness and the application of electronic monitoring as a condition of bond. The data suggest that any policy that mandates increasing the use of electronic monitoring could have an effect of increasing the violation rate. 5 notes, 7 tables, and 7 references