|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
New York is wrapping up its state budget season, and the Legislature is in session for a few more weeks, which means we are deep in the middle of our annual discourse on criminal justice reform. Year after year, New York debates big-ticket items like bail reform or, this year, changes to discovery laws. And year after year, we lose sight of uncontroversial ways to improve public safety, like improving our statewide pretrial services system.
Shortly after a person is arrested and charged with a crime, a judge will determine whether to release them (with or without conditions), set bail, or, in extreme cases, send them to jail without setting bail. If you’re reading the headlines, you might only know about release on someone’s own recognizance (i.e., complete freedom) or setting bail. But there is another option that judges have used with increasing frequency since 2019: “release to supervision,” where the court releases someone but places conditions on their freedom. Usually, judges exercise this option if someone’s charged offense or history requires something more restrictive than unconditional release but less punitive than unaffordable bail. And it is here that pretrial services mainly operate.
Since 1979, the organization I lead has run pretrial services in Wayne County. We work with people who are released to supervision to ensure they comply with their release conditions. But as a charitable organization, we do more than that. We help people find housing, education, work training, or substance use or mental health services, even if the court does not require it. We do this because we know that stability is a prerequisite for success and safety.
We have many success stories. “Michael,” a 19-year-old, was distrustful of anyone he perceived as part of the “system.” But after months of working together, we helped Michael enroll in anger management classes, comply with other release conditions, and earn a sentence of conditional discharge that allowed him to remain out of jail. Similarly, “John” came to us on the highest level of supervision—electronic monitoring. John suffers from mental health and substance use issues, untreated trauma, and medical misdiagnoses, and had cycled through the system for years. By meeting John with simple care and kindness, we helped him seek medical care and obtain a correct diagnosis and better treatment, which has set him on a better path.
With an 85 percent success rate for our clients, I have countless stories like these. We define success strictly—to us, it means that our clients make their court dates, successfully complete their pretrial supervision, and are not arrested again before their trial. Our success rate far exceeds statewide averages thanks to our approach, our dedicated staff, and decades of experience.
Like each county provider in the state, we do this work on our own, without guidance or support—but we shouldn’t have to. Right now, Assemblymember Anna Kelles and Sen. Julia Salazar are sponsoring legislation (A3994/S430) that would create an office of pretrial services responsible for improving how providers in every county in New York do this important work. That office would conduct research and circulate best practices and role-appropriate training materials, among many other improvements. Their work would ensure that providers are well equipped to best help New Yorkers in every community. And this legislation shouldn’t be politically controversial, for it does not impact release decisions. If passed, judges would not be forced to release more or fewer people, but every person who is released would be given better support.
Regardless of where you stand on the broader issue of bail reform, we should all agree that improving the efficiency, consistency, and quality of pretrial services makes sense. This year, let’s not lose sight of common sense and achievable ways to improve our criminal justice system beyond the headline debate.
Martha Bailey is the executive director of Wayne Pre-Trial Services, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency.
The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected].
Pretrial services definitely has a role in the criminal justice system, but it has nothing to do with public safety. The role of pretrial services is to help people who get caught up in the criminal justice system that are unable to help themselves (the mentally challenged, the homeless, the truly indigent who have no family or social connections in the community). These are the people who fall through the cracks of the criminal justice system and these are the people that led to the creation of pretrial services. For someone to say that pretrial services should be charged with playing the role of bail agent, but doing so with taxpayer money (nothing is free) is ridiculous. Even further to say that pretrial services provides people freedom, but they will have to wear an ankle monitor or some other type of freedom restricting device, is just dishonest. The surety bail industry is a much more proven and effective release mechanism for those being released from jail pretrial that doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime. There is definitely a role for both pretrial and surety bail in the system, but to say that pretrial services should grow and take over the role of what a private industry already does better and more efficiently is just not good policy.