Adjudication

BJA will commission a White Paper on risk assessment use in state and local sentencing decision making. The final report will be a critical tool to expand BJA's knowledge of how risk information is used, and may impact future BJA funding priorities and strategies.

On a nationwide basis, Pretrial Justice Reform efforts have gained momentum. The Commonwealth of Kentucky implemented Pretrial Services statewide in 1976. Since the inception of Pretrial Services there has never been a formal cost benefit analysis conducted to demonstrate the effective and efficient use of funding and resources . Kentucky Pretrial Services is housed in the judicial branch of government, which over the past three budget cycles has been grossly underfunded, experienced lay-offs, furloughs and frozen positions.

I am the Planning Coordinator for 2014 Bryne Justice Assistance Grant to design a Wellness/Mental Health Court for the Aurora Municipal Criminal Courts. Part of our grant has dollars set aside to do a intercept mapping for the gaps in our delivery system. I have looked locally for a moderator and have been unsuccessful. I reached out to our state JAG for assistance and they referred me to you.

The Oregon CJC is seeking training and technical assistance from a multi-disciplinary team to perform 3 tasks: 1) Develop an implementation plan for Lane and Klamath Counties; 2) advise on performance and outcome measures for counties implementing the Marion County program, 3) work with CJC to document the implementation process and prepare resources for other counties to replicate the process.

The Sandoval County District Court would like to receive some training and guidance with our pretrial services program. A general training in the research recommended functioning of how the program should be run as well as some support in the purchase or development of our own PTS risk assessment tool is very much needed.

The Board requests further technical assistance with Dr. James Austin to review and determine if revisions to the Board’s parole guidelines levels 1, 3, 4, and 7 are merited. Currently, parole guidelines level 1 shows a 0-5% probability rate for success. The Board’s statistics show that voting members’ are voting more than the 5% rate. Additionally, level 7 shows a 76-100% probability rate for success. The data shows the majority of the voting members are unable to attain this rate.

The Governor’s Office on Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP) is requesting assistance to fund eight members of the Governor’s Commission to Reform Maryland’s Pretrial Release System to travel to the Commonwealth of Kentucky to observe the pretrial risk assessment process in that state. Such a visit can be extremely beneficial to the Commission in completing the tasks assigned to it by the Governor. Kentucky is one of the few states in the country where pretrial services is run statewide, an approach that the Governor has asked the Commission to examine.

Seeking research-driven Mental Health Court Training. BJA NTTAC referred to the Council of State Governments Justice Center.

Measures for Justice has developed a draft Justice Index that contains about 50 indicators that represent every part of the justice system from arrest to post-conviction and include interests of both victims and defendants. The measures need to be tested for feasibility and utility in order to create a core set of indicators that can be widely replicated in counties across the United States. MFJ is conducting a pilot in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin to examine data capacity at the local level and to hone down the current Justice Index measures so that they can be used nationwide.