Overview of Federal Pretrial Services Initiatives from the Vantage Point of the Criminal Law Committee

According to a recent survey conducted by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, there are approximately 25 initiatives in the federal courts that may provide alternatives to incarceration or reduced sentences for certain defendants who satisfy the requirements of these programs.9 In June 2017, the Committee was briefed on a paper prepared by Christine ScottHayward, the Supreme Court Fellow assigned to the Sentencing Commission, on the emergence of pretrial diversion and front-end alternative-to-incarceration court programs in the federal system.10 The paper explains that the evidence on the effectiveness of these programs, most of which is in the state system, is mixed. [...]the Administrative Office maintains databases and generates data reports to help inform release and detention decisions, including information to measure the implementation and use of the PTRA and how the PTRA may influence release outcomes. [...]for those defendants who successfully rebutted the presumption and were released on bond, outcome data were analyzed and compared to the outcomes for non-presumption cases in terms of rates of (1) rearrest, (2) rearrest for violent offenses, (3) failure to appear, and (4) technical violations ultimately leading to revocation of bond. The vast majority of these defendants appear to be charged with drug trafficking offenses. Since low-risk defendants tend to be successful on pretrial supervision, regardless of whether they are charged with an offense where the presumption of detention applies, it appears that the presumption is unnecessarily increasing pretrial detention rates.