NCJ Number
245500
Date Published
June 2013
Length
40 pages
Annotation
This report presents the results of an examination of the Queens County (NY) Supervised Release Program.
Abstract
This final report by the New York City Criminal Justice Agency (CJA) presents the results of an examination of CJA's Queens County (NY) Supervised Release Program. The CJA is a non-profit agency that works with the City of New York to provide pre-trial services to almost all arrested persons prosecuted in the City's adult criminal court system. The supervised release program is offered by judges at arraignment to selected offenders arrested for certain non-violent felonies who have satisfied a number of conditions during a rigorous pre-arraignment screening process. This report provides an overview of the program as well as data on completed program cases, case and defendant characteristics, court outcomes in completed program cases, comparison of exited program and pre-program groups of cases, and comparison of baseline and program cases arraigned on felony drug and property crime charges. The evaluation found that to date, the majority of the program's clients (87.4 percent) have left the program under successful conditions of participation. The evaluation also found that defendants sentenced to pretrial release were less likely to receive a conditional discharge sentence compared to defendants not released before trial. In addition, those defendants that were received pretrial release were more likely to have shorter case processing times with prosecutors still able to successfully obtain convictions in these cases. Program limitations are discussed. Tables and figures