We Suck at Bail
Utah is terrible at deciding who should be kept in jail prior to trial. Over a third of people released will fail to appear in court at least once. Another third will commit an offense while their case is still pending.
The problem comes from tension between legitimate, competing interests—defendants' due process rights and the public's right to not be victimized. In striking a balance, courts have a range of options. In limited circumstances, defendants can be held till trial. Short of that, judges release people with conditions.
These conditions can be financial (monetary bail is granted) or nonfinancial (a judge can order someone to wear a GPS monitor, have no contact with an alleged victim, etc.). Unfortunately, those conditions are either ineffective or being misapplied.
Of those released with a financial condition, 40% still miss at least one court hearing. This holds true for 30% of those released with nonfinancial conditions and 34% of people released without any conditions.
The numbers regarding crimes committed by those on pretrial release are equally abysmal. Nearly 40% of those released with a financial condition will commit a crime, as will 27% of those released with nonfinancial conditions and 39% of those released with no conditions.
Clearly, we are terrible at determining who should be released and on what terms. Currently, judges are making decisions using a Public Safety Assessment (PSA). The PSA attempts to quantify the risk that a defendant will fail to appear or commit a new crime. It considers nine factors relating to criminal history and prior failures to appear and assigns a score between one and five.
This approach is too simplistic. A homeless defendant may need special considerations to notify him of future hearings. An alcoholic might need continuous alcohol monitoring to prevent drunk driving. And if someone is likely to commit new crimes while on pretrial release, there may be no way to protect the public other than keeping him or her in jail.
The PSA may be a good starting point, but judges need more information to impose release conditions that work. There also needs to be meaningful consequences for missing court and continuing criminal behavior.
It's clear that the status quo isn't working. Unfortunately, the current data isn't granular enough to suggest a solution. We don't know what types of crime defendants are committing while on pretrial release. We don't know what factors would better predict continued criminal behavior and failures to appear.
When Utah's Justice Reinvestment Act (JRI) passed in 2015, it promised evidence-based solutions. But in the years since, we have not gathered data to make this possible.
Instead, we're still operating based on anecdotes, gut feelings and inaccurate prediction tools. It's time we put the "investment" in the Justice Reinvestment Act and gather the evidence needed to make better decisions. Maximizing liberty for defendants who have not yet been proven guilty and keeping the community safe from continued crime are too important to leave to chance.
AMY POMEROY
Criminal justice policy analyst
Libertas Institute
We Are a Changed People
I guess politicians got what they wanted ... change. But politicians never told us they wanted us to change for the worse.
For hundreds of years on this continent, there were three kinds of speech that were prosecuted: false speech, obscene speech and seditious speech. Today—all good.
Average Americans know how to find friends, get their kids up and off to school, call an Uber, boot up a computer and cruise the net, make a video and post it online or drive off in a car to a workplace where they do what they are told all day long. Kudos to us.
Our ancestors kept great books in their homes, read them and used them to teach. They apprenticed children in skilled trades. They learned the law, they farmed the land, started businesses, gave blood by volunteering as police watchmen and militiamen, took a turn running for office, built their own homes and made their own furnishings. They started towns and cities in their spare time.
KIMBALL SHINKOSKEY
Woods Cross
Care to sound off on a local concern? Write to comments@cityweekly.net or post your thoughts on our social media. We want to hear from you!