Statement of Lewis D Frazier on February 13, 1980 (From Operations of the Pretrial Services Agencies - Hearings, P 74-83, 1981 - See NCJ-87514)

• NCJ Number: 87516
• Author(s): L D Frazier
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 27 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Because the pretrial services agency (PSA) of the Federal Western District of Missouri has improved criminal justice processing by providing verified information to the court relevant to the bail decision and supervision services for those released on bail, it is recommended that PSA's be established in all Federal districts.

Abstract

During the past 4 years, the PSA in the Western District of Missouri has interviewed almost every defendant arrested or charged with an offense. About 95 percent of those interviews have been prebail. In each case, a report was submitted to the judicial officer who set bond. The reports contain recommendations for a specific type of release as well as for conditions of release. The chief magistrate, who processes most of the criminal cases in Kansas City, indicates that the services of PSA have saved him about 45 minutes per case. The PSA also monitors defendants both in detention and on release, and monitoring information becomes the ground for a pretrial service officer initiating a bail review hearing. The PSA has also developed procedures that facilitate managing the flow of defendants through the system at any given time. By scheduling the number of defendants who are going to surrender, the Marshal's Office, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the PSA can achieve better efficiency with a limited staff. PSA information has also been useful for presentence reports, and the documentation of the defendant's behavior while under pretrial supervision can help determine whether probation might be an effective sentence. The supervision services provided by PSA during pretrial release have permitted the release of defendants who might not have otherwise been released, thus reducing the number of persons in preventive detention. This has occurred without an increase in the number of new crimes committed while on bail or the failure-to-appear rate. These benefits derived from the PSA suggest that it should not only be continued in the 10 experimental districts but be expanded to all Federal districts. Examples of pretrial reports are provided.