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Pretrial

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Changing the Behavior of Drug-Involved Offenders: Supervision That Works

December, 2012

A small number of offenders who are heavily involved in drugs commit a large portion of the crime in this country. An evaluation of a "smart supervision" effort in Hawaii that uses swift and certain sanctioning showed that heavily involved drug offenders can indeed change their behavior when the supervision is properly implemented.

Pretrial Research and Safety

After someone is arrested, the judge or other judicial officer decides whether the defendant can be released until the trial or must be detained. Holding defendants until trial generates extra jail expenses and sequesters the defendants before they have been found guilty in court. The justice system, however, also needs to ensure that a released defendant will not endanger the public or run away before the trial. Safety is a particular concern in domestic violence cases; abusers released before trial might disregard no-contact orders and return to harm their victims.

Crime File: Drug Testing

1986

In this Crime File video, James Q. Wilson moderates a panel of three (Jay Carver, Director of the D.C. Pretrial Services Program; Elizabeth Symmonds, attorney with the Capitol Area Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union; and Dr. Eric Wish, a drug researcher)