Practice Profile: Pretrial Interventions for Ensuring Appearance in Court

During the pretrial process, defendants may be released on certain conditions. To ensure that released defendants show up to their court date, jurisdictions have used three strategies: 1) court-date reminder notifications, 2) bonds, and 3) supervision in the community. The goal of is to reduce the failure-to-appear rates of defendants. Across the three strategies, the practice is rated Promising for decreasing failure-to-appear rates but rated Ineffective for reducing arrest rates.

Practice Goals

Pretrial release refers to a process in which adult defendants are released to the community, rather than detained in jail, prior to the disposition of their cases. To ensure that defendants who are released before disposition show up to scheduled court dates, jurisdictions have used the following three interventions: 1) court-date reminder notifications; 2) bonds as a condition of release; and 3) pretrial supervision, during which defendants are released and supervised in a non-institutional setting. The goals are to ensure that individuals attend their scheduled court appearances and to maintain public safety.

Practice Components

Judges determine whether an individual will be released during pretrial, usually based on the assessment of an individual’s likelihood of appearing in court and other considerations of public safety.  Each of the three interventions has unique components.

Court-Date Reminder Notifications. Court-date reminder notifications may come in the form of postcards or letters, telephone calls (made by officers or through an automated system), and text messages. In addition to variations in the form of the notification, the content of the notification can also vary. For example, some notifications may only provide the court date, time, and location. Other notifications may explain the consequences of failing to appear in court such as a bench warrant being issued (Bechtel et al. 2017).

Bonds. Different types of release by bonds are available to individuals. One type is surety bond, or commercial bond, where money is lent to individuals on release by a bond dealer, usually for a fee. If the individual does not appear in court, the bonding company is liable for the full amount of bail. Another type is called deposit bond, where individuals post a small fraction of the bail amount (such as 10 percent) to the court.

If the individuals fail to appear in court, they lose the deposit and are held liable for the full value of the bond. Individuals may also be released on unsecured bonds, which does not require a deposit to be released; however, they will be liable for the full amount if they do not appear in court (Helland and Tabarrok 2004).

If individuals do appear in court, they typically receive back any bond or deposit already paid to the court. Using bonds as a condition of release is based on the idea that bonds serve as a deterrent for failing to appear at court because individuals will strive to avoid bond forfeiture or the threat of pursuit from a bonding company (Betchel et al. 2017).

Pretrial Supervision 

The decision to release defendants to pretrial supervision is often based on the determination of a defendant’s level of risk (of not appearing in court and/or reoffending before the court date). Some jurisdictions will use certain factors to determine a defendant’s risk classification, such as the seriousness of the current offense or the likelihood of flight or rearrest (Goldkamp and White 2006). Other jurisdictions may use validated risk assessments, such as the Risk Prediction Index, to classify a defendant’s risk level (Robinson et al. 2012).

Defendants may be released to the custody of a pretrial supervision or services department (if one exists in the jurisdiction), or to other agencies, such as probation or parole offices, that are responsible for post-conviction supervision.

Pretrial supervision practices vary widely by jurisdictions. Pretrial supervision could include location monitoring; electronic monitoring; halfway house placement; substance abuse testing; or participation in treatment programs for alcohol/drug or mental health issues, or for sex offenses (VanNostrand and Keebler 2009). Pretrial supervision programs also vary in their requirements and protocols, such as standards for graduation, noncompliance, and termination (Hahn et al. 2016).

These sources were used in the development of the practice profile:

These sources were used in the development of the practice profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Strategic Training Initiative in Community Supervision (STICS)

Staff Training Aimed at Reducing Rearrest (STARR)

Court Date Reminder Notices (Nebraska)

Pretrial GPS Supervision of Intimate Partner Violence Defendants (Western Region, United States)

Arkansas Community Corrections Texting Protocol

Live Court Date Reminder Phone Calls (New York City)

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?