At Stanford University, researchers plan to use the grant from Arnold Ventures to conduct research on and evaluate the, a pretrial risk assessment used by judges to set bail based on factors like a person’s age or criminal history.
“The worst thing about pretrial is that this is all preconviction. This is done under a presumption of innocence and yet people are often stuck [in jail] for an inability to pay,” says Sharad Goel, executive director at the Stanford Computational Policy Lab, which is receiving funding from Arnold Ventures. “The goal is to revamp this and make sure that we are really not making decisions based on finances, but based on risk.
In addition to bail reform, the grants are intended to look at alternate ways to treat a subset of those accused of crimes. Instead of prosecuting people with mental health or substance abuse issues, many prosecutors can choose to divert these individuals to services that will help them, Cadogan says. Other partner organizations, such as the Pretrial Justice Institute, plan to use the grant money to research these sorts of so called “diversion programs.
“Diversion programs are embedded in a lot of prosecutors offices throughout the country and the question is, ‘Are we using them enough?’” Cadogan says. Further grant-funded initiatives include a study by The Public Safety Lab at New York University on the impacts of bail, pretrial detention and counsel practices on defendant-level outcomes across 1,028 counties.I'm a wealth reporter at Forbes. Before joining Forbes, I reported for the Hartford Courant and the New Haven Register, covering breaking and local news. A Connecticut n...
KristinStoller Or he could pay his fair share of taxes and he’d help more! I’m tired of billionaires getting credit for these small gifts when they skirt 10x that in taxes!