In this post, part of a series on bail reform in North Carolina, I highlight reforms that have been implemented in Orange County, North Carolina. My goal in doing so is to provide models and points of contact for jurisdictions interested in these efforts. If you’d like your jurisdiction’s work highlighted here, please reach out to me. The information in this post came from an interview I did with Caitlin Fenhagen, Orange County’s Criminal Justice Resource Director and Ted Dorsi, that County’s Pretrial Release Case Manager. Thanks to both of them for taking the time to speak with me. Risk Assessment According to Cait, the most significant Orange County reform is implementation of an actuarial risk assessment tool for every defendant who has a first appearance, along with a decision making framework that pairs release conditions to assessed risk. The risk assessment tool adopted in Orange County is the Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument-Revised (VPRAI-R). Although not all risk assessment instruments require an interview with the defendant, the VPRAI-R does. Thus, Ted interviews all defendants in jail prior to the first appearance. This includes not only defendants who have been arrested on new charges but also those arrested for probation violations and failures to appear. During the interviews, Ted provides information to defendants about the purpose of the upcoming first appearance hearing and gathers risk and needs information relevant to the judge’s determination of pretrial release conditions. Using the VPRAI-R, staff examine an established set of risk factors, such as whether [...]
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