Pretrial Release Initiative

Pretrial Evaluation: The collection and analysis of a defendant’s information on factors impacting his/her likelihood to appear and risk to public safety.  May be conducted by local corrections or their designee (pretrial services, jail administration or law enforcement). 
Also known as:

• bail evaluation
• bail study
• pretrial bail evaluation

Pretrial Evaluation Form: Template for recording factors of a particular defendant and the current charge used to inform the pretrial release decision.  A form does not assign a score or recommendation for pretrial release decisions and does not assign a weight for different factors.
Also known as:

• pretrial evaluation form
• bail form
• form

Pretrial Release Decision: Release decision by court, or designated authority, that a defendant will be released on his/her own recognizance (ROR), released on conditions (CR), or released on bail/bond (bail).

Pretrial Release Process: The full process used in a court location (involving pretrial services and the court) from arrest/summons, including the pretrial evaluation, the pretrial release decision, and the actual release or detention of a defendant.

Pretrial Failure: An outcome that a pretrial risk assessment seeks to predict and minimize.  The most common outcomes are 1) likelihood of failure to appear (FTA) for court appearances in the present case and 2) likelihood of new crimes (e.g. arrest, charge) committed during the pretrial window (release to disposition).

Pretrial Risk Assessment Tool: A research-based (actuarial) instrument comprised of predictive factors that are weighted and scored to provide a recommended pretrial release decision (based on categorized risk of pretrial failure).  The tool is used to assist the court, or its designated authority, in making pretrial release decisions. 
Also known as:

• tool
• scale

Validation: A study of the effectiveness of a tool at predicting the outcome it seeks to predict on a specific population.

Disparity: The tendency to treat those in a specific group (e.g., race, gender) differently or unfairly. Applied to validation studies, it is the tendency of a tool to assign different levels of predictiveness to a specific group relative to other groups (also referred to as "bias" or "predictive disparities").