What Risk Assessment Validation Tells Us about Pretrial Failures: They’re Lower than We Think

Suppose I told you that we could categorize defendants into six categories for risk of failure to appear (FTA) in court as required, with 1 being the lowest risk category and 6 being the highest. What is your guess as to the percentage of defendants who appear in court as required at risk level 1? At risk level 6? When I ask this question of North Carolina stakeholders, most guess that the percentage of defendants who appear in court at risk level 1 is about 50% and that the percentage who appear at risk level 6 is about 20%. They are wrong. Risk assessment validation done in North Carolina shows that 87.4% of risk level 1 defendants appear in court as required and that 61.2% of risk level 6 defendants do so. In fact, that validation shows that at all risk levels, a majority of defendants appear in court as required. Suppose I also told you that we could categorize defendants into six risk categories for risk of new criminal activity during the pretrial period, with 1 being the lowest risk category and 6 being the highest. What is your guess as to the percentage of defendants who engage in new criminal activity risk level 1? At the other risk levels? Stakeholders guesses on these questions vary, but they always are surprised to learn the facts. Risk assessment validation done in North Carolina shows that 90.9% of defendants categorized at risk level 1 have no new criminal activity during the pretrial [...]