Thurston County judges using new risk tool to inform bail decisions. Here’s how it works
Thurston County is using a new tool to help judges and other judicial officers decide whether to impose bail or other conditions on people accused of crimes.
The tool, known as the Public Safety Assessment, uses data to estimate the likelihood that someone will appear in court, be arrested again or be arrested again for a violent crime if they are released, according to county documents.
The county began using the tool on Monday, Oct. 2. It’s one part of a larger effort to improve its pretrial process, the time period when someone is accused of crime and still presumed innocent. The implementation of the tool also comes after some judges have been facing increased scrutiny for their bail decisions.
The new PSA will be included in a pretrial report that judicial officers consider when deciding conditions of release, said Pretrial Services Director Carrie Hennen. Her staff is tasked with scoring people and including those scores on each report.
“Pretrial provides information now,” Hennen said. “We provide background (and) we provide criminal history. What the PSA does is really organize it in this evidence-based way that has been shown to be predictive of outcomes.”
These pretrial reports previously included recommendations for conditions of release, but Hennen said her staff would no longer be doing that.
Judge Mary Sue Wilson, who presides over Thurston County Superior Court, said the PSA will provide judges and other judicial officers with consistent, evidence-based information.
“The tool will be a piece of information that helps us think about an individual,” Wilson said. “Ultimately, the judge still follows the law and makes the decision with the law, but this is a piece of information that we don’t presently have.”
The PSA has been pushed by Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research (APPR), an initiative that uses data to improve the pretrial process in communities across the nation. The county partnered with APPR in 2019 to pursue its own improvements.
How does the PSA work?
The PSA will be completed on adults who have been booked into the county jail and are coming before the court for pretrial release conditions, according to county documents.
Hennen said her staff will consider nine factors that will be used to calculate three outcome scores: Failure to Appear (FTA), New Criminal Arrest (NCA) and New Criminal Violent Arrest (NCVA).
What was the defendant’s age at the time of the arrest or administering the PSA?
Is any current charge considered violent? If at least one current charge is considered violent, is the defendant 20 or younger?
Did the defendant have at least one other pending charge at the time of the alleged offense?
Does the defendant have any prior misdemeanor convictions?
Does the defendant have any prior felony convictions? Does the defendant have any prior convictions?
How many prior violent convictions does the defendant have?
How many failures to appear does the defendant have in the past two years?
Does the defendant have any prior failures to appear that are older than 2 years?
Does the defendant have any prior sentence to incarceration?
The three scores that are generated are then evaluated against data for adults booked into the Thurston County jail in 2017 and 2018. This data shows judges what percentage of people with similar scores succeeded in the pretrial process.
Based on a release conditions matrix, pretrial staff will then assign a release level to the defendant that ranges from 1-4.
Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim said his office considers its bail recommendations on a case-by-case basis with an emphasis on public safety concerns. When it comes to the PSA, he said he sees it as just one piece of information that a judge may consider rather than a deciding factor.
“We never want to get to the point where we’re making decisions about whether somebody gets released or not based on some mathematical score in a risk tool,” Tunheim said.
Superior Court Judge Christine Schaller said those who are accused should always get a score that’s appropriate for their circumstances.
Judicial officers must still follow the law and weigh other factors, she said, such as the allegations, arguments from the prosecuting attorney and defense attorney and input from any alleged victims who are willing to address the court.
“I don’t think it’s simple to just say, if you have this score, this is what will happen,” Schaller said. “It will never be like that.”
A judicial officer may still impose bail if they see no less restrictive conditions that can protect against specific concerns, Wilson said. Those concerns include whether a person is likely to commit a violent crime, interfere with witnesses or the administration of justice, or fail to appear at scheduled court hearings.
Why use the PSA?
In a Monday news release, the county said the PSA helps improve transparency and the consistency of pretrial decisions.
“The PSA has helped other jurisdictions achieve higher rates of release and lower their use of financial conditions, with no negative impact on crime or court appearance rates,” the release says.
Patrick O’Connor, Director of Public Defense for Thurston County, said the PSA is informed by nationally and locally validated empirical research. Contrary to what some may think, he said bail does not improve pretrial outcomes.
“This notion that money bail will result in somebody having some skin in the criminal justice game to not miss court or break the law is a fallacy,” O’Connor said.
Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research came to the same conclusion in its review of several studies.
Financial conditions often result in pretrial release for those who can afford bail and detention for those who cannot afford it, according to APPR. Meanwhile those who are detained may face many negative consequences.
For example, APPR found people who are detained often lose their housing, job and family support. Additionally, they are more likely to be pressured into a plea deal, receive a guilty verdict, face harsher sentences and be arrested again.
What’s next?
The county intends to evaluate the PSA by reviewing local data and pretrial outcomes in the months and years to come. This effort is made possible by the county’s participation in the APPR initiative.
As part of that initiative, the county became one of six counties selected as Research Action Sites. Hennen said this designation comes with technical assistance to implement and evaluate improvements.
The PSA is a key improvement, but it’s not the sole focus of this multi-year initiative. O’Connor said the county’s vision is to enhance public safety while also maximizing court appearances and pre-trial release however it can.
“Prior to this project, we didn’t collect any data on this critical piece of the criminal justice system,” O’Connor said. “We weren’t in a position to collect data on pretrial successes or failures or rates or all the things we’re collecting now.”
Schaller said she’s excited to have access to data on the pretrial system in Thurston County and the potential for further improvements.
“Anecdotal stories about one case — that’s not indicative of our system,” Schaller said. “I am really excited about the prospect of being able to look at what the numbers show because we can’t make decisions within our system based upon necessarily what happens in one situation.”
