One of the most important decisions a judge or court commissioner makes in handling criminal cases is whether the defendant should be kept in jail or released while awaiting an outcome. A person\u2019s constitutional rights and the community\u2019s need for safety need to be weighed.<\/p>\n
At an \u201cOn the Issues with Mike Gousha\u201d program at Marquette Law School on Wednesday, Maxine White, chief judge of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, summarized the obligation of judges and commissioners when making those decisions: \u201cTo do everything possible to get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started as a judge 25 years ago, the \u2018getting it right\u2019 was all in Maxine\u2019s head and Maxine\u2019s gut,\u201d White said. \u201cSince that time, we\u2019ve gotten smarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tool that is being used now as a key to getting smarter was the focus of the program in the newly-named Lubar Cente<\/a>r\u00a0(previously the Appellate Courtroom) at Eckstein Hall as White, L\u201985, along with Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and Wisconsin First Assistant State Defender Tom Reed, described a scoring system that is being used in Milwaukee County and almost 30 other jurisdictions around the United States to better inform decisions on releasing or incarcerating those awaiting outcomes of criminal complaints. \u00a0<\/p>\n Milwaukee County began using a scoring system in 2012 based on assessing a variety of factors in a defendant\u2019s life. The goal was to use an \u201cevidence-based\u201d measurement of the risk of releasing someone and the likelihood they would show up for further proceedings in their case.<\/p>\n While the system was considered a step forward, the county in 2015 began switching to a different system, called the \u00a0Public Safety Assessment. Supported by grants from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, based in Houston, researchers analyzed 1.5 million cases nationwide and concluded that a scoring system, based on analysis of nine factors, could provide good assistance in making decisions on whether to release defendants.<\/p>\n The Arnold Foundation web site summarizes the nine factors: \u201cWhether the current offense is violent; whether the person has a pending charge at the time of arrest; whether the person has a prior misdemeanor conviction; whether the person has a prior felony conviction; whether the person has a prior conviction for a violent crime; the person\u2019s age at the time of arrest; whether the person failed to appear at a pretrial hearing in the last two years; whether the person failed to appear at a pretrial hearing more than two years ago; and whether the person has previously been sentenced to incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n White told the Law School audience that none of the factors involve a person\u2019s income or race or where a person lives, which reduces concerns that such scoring systems have unintended, built-in biases.<\/p>\n White, Chisholm and Reed emphasized in their comments that the assessment is a tool to help inform judicial decisions, but that judges and commissioners are still are responsible for using their judgment and discretion in making decisions.<\/p>\n White said that since Jan 1, 2017, the assessment has been used in about 3,200 cases in Milwaukee County courts. The judge or commissioner found in 85% of those cases that the recommendation based on the assessment was on track, White said. In the remaining cases, judges generally made decisions that were more restrictive or required more conditions for release than what the assessment indicated.<\/p>\n Chisholm said this is an exciting time for criminal justice systems as more is done to focus on what the system is intended to accomplish in deciding cases and maximizing community safety. Decisions \u201cshould be based on what really keeps a community safe and not just what we think,\u201d Chisholm said. He said early results support saying that the assessment tool is working and safety is not being harmed.<\/p>\n Reed compared the system for handling in-take of defendants into the system with a hospital emergency room. Hospitals are good at determining how to respond to patients \u2013 which ones need to be admitted, which ones need less extensive treatment, which ones can be referred to a doctor or clinic for help, which ones can go home. The criminal justice system hasn\u2019t been good at this and the new assessment tool is a step forward, he said.<\/p>\n Speaking for judges, White said, \u201cIn order to keep the community safe, in order to honor the democracy and the constitutional standards that we are duty bound to follow, we need help.\u201d The assessment system is providing help, the three panelists agreed.<\/p>\n To learn more from the Arnold Foundation about the Public Safety Assessment, click here.<\/a> To view video of the \u201cOn the Issues\u201d program, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the most important decisions a judge or court commissioner makes in handling criminal cases is whether the defendant should be kept in jail or released while awaiting an outcome. A person\u2019s constitutional rights and the community\u2019s need for safety need to be weighed. At an \u201cOn the Issues with Mike Gousha\u201d program at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,68,47,122,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-judges-judicial-process","category-milwaukee","category-public","category-speakers","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}