NCJ Number
216719
Date Published
August 2005
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This study examined which recommendations, the prosecutor's or the one provided by Criminal Justice Agency (CJA), provided judges with the more accurate assessment of whether a defendant, if released, would likely fail to appear for future court dates.
Abstract
Research results leave no doubt that the New York City Criminal Justice Agency (CJA) recommendation is far better at this task. It is never possible to predict with total accuracy whether a person will flee, but defendants in this study who were not recommended by CJA, and who were released anyway, were much more likely to miss a scheduled court date than defendants whom CJA had recommended. By contrast, among released defendants, those for whom prosecutors had consented to "release on recognizance" (ROR) failed to appear at the same rate as those for whom the prosecutor had requested over $5,000 in bail. In general, prosecutors' bail requests provided judges with no useful guidance as to the risk of "failure to appear" (FTA). Prosecutor's bail requests were linked to likelihood of conviction and the severity of the sentence for convicted defendants, and not to likelihood of FTA. Recent research has shown that prosecutors' bail requests have a considerable impact on judges' release and bail decisions at arraignment in New York City. However, a defendant's likelihood of FTA is the only statutory criterion for release in New York. The question addressed in this study was to what extent were prosecutors' bail requests based on risk of FTA? This paper presents a summary of findings and a brief discussion of their implications for judicial release and bail decisions.