NOLA considering pretrial services

Isthisthingon? May 31, 2011 at 9:29AM
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Pretrial Services as a concept was initially set up in New York to help in order to help the judges get a better handle on which of the people who were arrested had extensive histories of criminal activity. Their reports were given to the judges at arraignment so that lawyers and mommas could not claim, 'he never did this before' when in fact they were a career criminal. Police did not have the manpower to compile all the requisite information in time for arraignments.

The New York courts had also received numerous complaints and lawsuits claiming the courts were against poor people and there was no statistical data to prove the actual need to keep bails high. Pretrail Services was a great compromise to provide that proof.

With that said it should be noted that the group pushing for this blithely claims that Federal Statistics are not good enough and only their own statistics should be relied on. That in and of itself is a big red flag.

Pretrail Services as laid out in the TP article would not function in the New Orleans Culture. I would bet within a year we would be arresting at least one of those doing the evaluations for selling their services to the Criminals or being a "cousin" or whatever of people they evaluated as a low risk, particularly when they did not show up in court.

Pretrail Services should be used however. They should be used as in the original form from New York, to gather the criminal histories of those arrested prior to arraignment. They should be balanced against a checklist or formula that does not lean to ROR's but to appropriate bail amounts.

Convicted Felons particularly those with violent offenses should be at the top tier of bail amounts, but so should politicians and those that violated the public trust. Bankers and Rich White Collar Criminals should also be part of the highest tier bail amounts.

I support the Drug Testing aspect put out by Leon, and as marvinvernon posted, rehabilitation services for those on crack, heroin or other chemicals. I also support the idea that if a mother or father with custody of their children is found to have addictive chemicals in their systems that a DCFS case is opened at the same time. I'm not talking pot here, I'm talking crack, heroin, meth. etc. I also support the idea that if such a person is on public assistance the City, State and Federal Agencies along with the Court coordinate pressure and resources to get that person in to rehab services and employment.

I support the idea of monitoring bracelets for many defendants but they should be posting bail also.

The bail bondsmen are correct when they say they fill a vital role that NOPD or the Sheriff cannot do with the same vigor. The bondsmen have a vested interest in making sure the accused makes it to court as they certainly are not willing to lose 10, 20 or 50K because some slacker cant be bother to show up or runs from the jurisdiction. Frankly if I was a bondsmen I would require the anklet monitoring on any bond I wrote. The arrested person would pay that as an additional fee above the bond.

If this iniative happens, I just hope all New Orleans residents pays attention and demands that it be run properly instead of just as another waste of tax dollars.

Pretrial Services as a concept was initially set up in New York to help in order to help the judges get a better handle on which of the people who were arrested had extensive histories of criminal activity.

The New York courts had also received numerous complaints and lawsuits claiming the courts were against poor people and there was no statistical data to prove the actual need to keep bails high. Pretrail Services was a great compromise to provide that proof.