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| Organization: "Bail Works for America"` http://fugitiverecovery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=12863 |
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| Author: | speezack [ Sat 28 Jan 2012 07:24 ] |
| Post subject: | Organization: "Bail Works for America"` |
I get stuff from these folks periodically... thought you may want to read this... copied and pasted from a bulk email... >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” There is a dangerous movement in the criminal justice community, one that would seek to quantify and simplify the potential behavior of criminal defendants into a nice tidy grid. The idea, known among academics as Universal Risk Assessment, goes something like this: based on a number of select variables, we can assign a value and create a scoring system for all criminal defendants. Government employees then use that scorecard to decide whether or not a defendant is a risk to the community. For every complex problem… The scorecard, which would presumably be created by these same academics, might contain something like, “six to nine universal elements…with prescribed decision or cut points for the decision maker.”* ...there is an answer that is clear, simple… This idea, which apparently is catching on in parts of our nation, would substitute experience, judgment, education, training, and good old fashioned common sense with a one-size-fits-all, take-a-number approach to assessing criminal defendants. How dangerous is this idea? Even the national organization pushing this ill-conceived concept admits, in a study released just last year, that not only is the high-cost concept of an “uncomplicated template” flawed but that, “Most predictions of crime are different in different places for different reasons.” SERIOUSLY? It took a national study to conclude that crime and behavior is a complicated matter? How much of our hard-earned tax dollars were spent on this study? We believe there is no easy solution to the complicated problem of assessing a defendant’s likelihood of flight after an arrest. That is why we support the concept of private surety bail. Bail agents are highly trained, experienced, attuned to the local culture, and highly motivated to get it right. Why? Because when a bail agent gets it wrong, he or she will be held personally and financially accountable to both the community and the courts. That is why bail agents are conservative in their assessments and exceedingly thorough in their evaluations. Let’s be honest, even the most well-intended government assessor, using an “uncomplicated template” to assess a defendant, will never have any real skin in the game and will never be held personally or financially accountable if a dangerous criminal flees his or her jurisdiction. The concept of distilling down human behavior to a few simple variables and applying it uniformly across our nation is not just dangerous, it is just plain – to quote Mencken – “wrong.” Just another reason that BAIL WORKS for America. *State of the Science of Pretrial Risk Assessment. Bureau of Justice Assistance. U.S. Department of Justice. March 2011 |
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