National Pretrial Reporting Program

The 2012 National Pretrial Reporting Program (NPRP) project will endeavor to administer a design and development effort that allows for the generation of key measures of interest in the pretrial area from a nationally representative sample of state trial courts. Specifically, this project will explore the feasibility of collecting information on the mechanisms of pretrial release from a national sample of state trial courts and aggregate counts of several pretrial measures, including the number of defendants released pretrial, the methods of release, and the numbers of released defendants who committed some form of pretrial misconduct. Moreover, the NPRP will use findings from its design and development efforts to assist in the generation of sampling methodologies for producing national level pretrial statistics in state courts. Lastly, the NPRP project will develop an implementation plan to conduct the first wave of this new statistical series to begin in calendar year 2015. Findings from this project will be used throughout the criminal justice community as it seeks to better understand the nature of the pretrial justice process operating in state courts throughout the United States. (CA/NCF)