opportunity probation

C O M M I T T E E R E P O R T SPretrial Services CommitteeThe Pretrial Services Advisory Committee had the privilege ofconducting its committee meeting this past week at the IPCSASpring Conference. Present were pretrial practitioners from thecounties of McLean, Rock Island, Lake, and Kane.A lengthy discussion took place as to the current state of PretrialServices in each respective jurisdiction given the recent economiccrisis and various departmental budget cuts. Additionally,further discussion took place as to how Pretrial Services hasbeen affected now that there are new laws such as Cindy Bishofin place. The overall consensus is that because of the new law,it is quite likely that there are newly developing pretrial programsformulating throughout the State. This led us to anotherdiscussion which worked in conjunction with our committeegoals for 2010.The overall goal of this committee is to provide future pretrialservices related workshops at IPCSA to prospective pretrial practitionersas well as other various stakeholders in probation andcourt services who may have a vested interest in acquiring, developing,or enhancing a pretrial program. To do this however,we must first get an update as to which jurisdictions in the Stateof Illinois have a pretrial program. We will do this by formulatinga survey which will be passed out and hopefully completedby all jurisdictions. We will inquire about current pretrial servicesfunctions such as bond evaluations, pretrial supervision,the use of evidence based practices and whether a program is indevelopment as a result of the Cindy Bischof Law. The results ofthese surveys will hopefully provide us the useful tools whichwill dictate the best possible training criteria in future IPCSAconferences.RepresentativeCommitteeThe Representative Committee consists ofall the Committee Chairs from the individualcommittees within IPCSA. We had a briefmeeting at the spring conference and arefocusing on working together to help all thecommittees as well as the Association continueto provide quality workshops, networking,information sharing, and growth.During the next few months, members ofthe Representative Committee will be submittingnominations for the Frank CalkinsCommittee Member of the Year Award. Therecipient of this award will be chosen by theRepresentative Committee and will be recognizedat the Fall Conference AnnualAwards Banquet. Representative Committeemembers are not eligible to win as thisis an opportunity for us to recognize theinvaluable work and dedication shown byour committee members.The Representative Committee will meetagain on Wednesday, October 20, 2010, at8:30 a.m. at the Fall Conference in TazewellCounty.Additionally, during our meeting it was announced that KeithCooprider of Lake County has decided to step down his role asCommittee Co-Chair. He will continue to play an active role as amember in future meetings. The committee then nominatedand elected Christine Hecker, Lake County as the new co-chair.At this time I would like to give recognition and praise to Christinefor heading a project in Lake County known as Project Remand.This project involved pretrial services officers the expeditiousfacilitation of returning defendants to court who failed toappear. This in turn saves the jurisdiction time, money and resourcesin reducing the need for police manhunts and dollarsspent on jail bed space. Good job Christine.Sharjeel M. RizviCo-Chair IPCSA Pretrial Services Advisory Committee13