LIBERTY AND JUSTICE PRETRIAL PRACTICES IN TEXAS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Texas Judicial Council ..................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................... xvii
Executive Summary. ................................................................................................................................... xvii
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................1
Part I: Evidence From Two Jurisdictions
Overview of the Study Sites............................................................................................................................7
Risk-Informed Pretrial Case Processing System: Travis County ............................................................................7
Financial-Based Pretrial Release System: Tarrant County .................................................................................. 11
Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 13
FINDING 1: Validated pretrial risk assessment successfully predicts defendants’ chance of bond failure. ....... 15
Risk Scores Predict Bail Failure ............................................................................................................................ 15
Risk Scores Are Being Used to Inform Detention Decisions ................................................................................ 16
Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 16
FINDING 2: Similar decisions to release or detain defendants can be obtained using a lower-cost statistical
algorithm instead of an interview-based risk assessment. ............................................................................. 17
Efficacy of an Automated Risk Assessment Algorithm ........................................................................................ 17
Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 18
FINDING 3: Validated risk assessment results in better pretrial classification: fewer high-risk defendants are
released, and fewer low-risk individuals are detained. .................................................................................. 19
Release Based on Risk ......................................................................................................................................... 19
Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 21
FINDING 4: The costs of a risk-informed pretrial release system are more than offset by savings that occur
when defendants are properly classified....................................................................................................... 23
4.1: Pretrial Program Costs ................................................................................................................................. 25
4.2: Bail Failure Case Processing Costs ............................................................................................................... 26
4.3: Victim Costs ................................................................................................................................................. 27
4.4: Detention Costs ........................................................................................................................................... 29
4.5: Misclassification Costs ................................................................................................................................. 30
Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 31
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