On June 9th, at the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) Regional Pretrial Conference in Baltimore, CJI’s Kristin Bechtel presented along with Christian Kervick of the Delaware Criminal Justice Council and the Hon. Alan Davis, two leaders of pretrial reform in the Delaware criminal justice system, on the process of creating, implementing, and validating the state’s pretrial risk assessment tool, as well as lessons learned from the initiative (Presentation – PDF). The trio educated conference-goers on the importance of creating an implementation plan collaboratively with criminal justice stakeholders; implementing the plan with fidelity, buy-in, and training; and assessing the effectiveness of the assessment through validation.
The Baltimore Regional Pretrial Conference is one of three regional conferences held by the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) this year. These conferences focus on educating pretrial practitioners on the state of pretrial justice reform nationally, implementation of pretrial policies and practices in local jurisdictions, and the science behind risk assessment.
CJI has been working with Delaware’s Criminal Justice Council since September 2015 to validate their pretrial risk assessment tool, and continues to work with them on best practices pretrial reform.