The Third Branch
Milwaukee begins universal screening process
By Beth Bishop Perrigo, Deputy District Court Administrator
After months of preparation, Milwaukee County began implementation of universal screening of pretrial defendants on Jan. 14. Universal screening helps identify pretrial defendants who can safely be released to the community, resulting in more appropriate and effective use of expensive jail space for high-risk defendants.
Conversely, universal screening helps identify defendants who pose too great a risk to be released, thereby protecting community safety. Screening will also ensure that for those defendants who are released, adequate conditions are imposed to mitigate any identified risk for failure to appear.
Through a pretrial investigation interview, application of the Milwaukee County Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument and praxis, Milwaukee County will have assistance in identifying the following populations:
- Low-risk defendants who can safely be released with very limited or no conditions pending case adjudication;
- Moderate/moderate high risk defendants whose presenting risks can be adequately addressed by imposition of appropriate release conditions and/or pretrial and community supervision resources;
- High-risk defendants for whom no conditions can assure future court appearance and/or public safety and who therefore must be detained until their case is adjudicated.
Jail screening has been expanded to a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation. Screening focuses on persons arrested/booked on the following types of offenses:
- Summary misdemeanor/felony offense
- Misdemeanor initial appearance warrant return
- Felony initial appearance warrant return
- Misdemeanor bench warrant return
- Summary criminal traffic offense
- Warrant/bench warrant return for criminal traffic offense
- Any criminal offense that would subject the arrestee to having bail set in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court system.
During the first month of operation, about 1,600 investigations were completed on persons arrested and booked into the County Correctional Facility Central.
The investigation process includes use/application of the following tools:
1. Milwaukee County Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument-Revised
2. Milwaukee County Pretrial Investigation
3. Milwaukee County Pretrial Praxis
The investigation results in the Milwaukee County Pretrial Risk Assessment Report. This report is published to the web-enabled Milwaukee County Pretrial Services Database and is available electronically to all stakeholders. The assistant district attorney uses the report at charging to formulate a bail recommendation, the defense attorney uses the report to prepare for the initial appearance and the commissioner in the In Custody Intake Court uses the report to help formulate the bail and release conditions decision.
The report contains basic defendant demographic information, charge information, risk factor information and a recommendation as to the bond type, bond range, supervision and conditions. This recommendation is the starting point for discussion of bail and release conditions.
To date, the praxis recommendation has been followed in approximately 92 percent of cases.
Outcome data are being collected on every case involving the application of the risk assessment and praxis and will be utilized to measure and compare failure to appear and re-arrest rates for persons released since inception of the program.
While it is difficult at this point to prove a causal relationship, the pretrial jail population on Jan. 25 was 862. As of Feb. 17, it was 733.