U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

Pretrial release

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

December 2012

A small number of those who commit crimes 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 individuals committing crimes who are heavily involved in drug use can indeed change their behavior when the supervision is properly implemented.

Reforming New Orleans' Criminal Justice System: The Role of Data and Research

September 2012

With its criminal justice system in disarray following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans invited the Vera Institute of Justice to examine the city's court and jail operations. For five years, Vera has been tracking arrest-to-first-appearance time, custodial arrests versus summonses, the granting of pretrial release, and many other decision-making points. Based on analysis of these data, Vera is making policy recommendations to assist with the implementation of new procedures and to ensure performance monitoring.

Crime File: Out on Bail

January 1984

This video, number 5 in the Crime File series, portrays a 3-member panel discussing the rate of rearrests among persons on pretrial release, features of the 1984 Federal bail law designed to prevent the pretrial release of dangerous persons, ways to reduce rearrests of pretrial releasees, and constitutional issues raised by preventive detention.