2010 Annual Director's Report - Judicial Discipline Reform

36 Adminstrative Office of the United States Courts
age points to 40 percent of the total. The proportion
of pretrial services cases opened in which the
major offense charged involved drugs fell 2 percentage
points to 27 percent. Cases involving
Table 9
Summary of Pretrial Services Cases
Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010
property offenses represented 14 percent of
pretrial services cases opened this year, up from 13
percent the previous year. Cases involving firearms
offenses dropped 2 percent from 7,618 in 2009 to
2009 2010
Percent
Change
Total Cases Activated 105,294 111,507 5.9
Pretrial Services Cases 104,217 110,547 6.1
Pretrial Diversion Cases 1,077 960 -10.9
Total Released on Supervision 29,615 29,902 1.0
Pretrial Supervision 28,418 28,632 0.8
Diversion Supervision 1,197 1,270 6.1
Type of Report
Pre-Bail 95,724 101,294 5.9
Other Reports (Including Post-Bail) 5,235 5,962 13.9
No Report 3,258 3,291 1.0
7,466 and represented 7 percent of pretrial services
cases opened in 2010.
Pretrial services officers (PSOs) prepare pretrial
services reports that ensure that judicial officers
have sufficient information for deciding whether to
release or detain defendants and for ordering the
least restrictive release conditions that reasonably
ensure that defendants will honor future court
commitments and will not endanger the community.
In 2010, PSOs prepared 107,256 pretrial
services reports, an increase of more than 6 percent
from the previous year. More than 92 percent of
pretrial services reports prepared were pre-bail
reports; the balance consisted of other reports,
including post-bail reports.
Because some cases are transferred out or
dismissed prior to the initial bail decision, the
110,547 cases in which bail decisions were made by
the activating districts constitute a subset of total
cases activated. Excluding these cases, as well as
cases for which release is not possible within 90
days, 111,271 bail determinations were made by the
courts. Including immigration cases involving
crimes such as illegal reentry, nearly 35 percent of
the defendants were released. When immigration
cases were excluded, the percentage of defendants
released was 47 percent.
A total of 29,902 defendants were received for
supervision in the pretrial services system, an
increase of nearly 1 percent from the previous year.
The proportion of defendants who were illegal
aliens, along with growth in immigration cases,