Virginia’s Pretrial Data Project was established in 2018 under the direction of the Virginia State Crime Commission as part of the Crime Commission’s broader study of the pretrial system in the Commonwealth.(*1) The purpose of the Project was to address the significant lack of data available to answer key questions regarding the pretrial process in Virginia. The Project was an unprecedented, collaborative effort among numerous state and local agencies representing all three branches of government. The Crime Commission’s study focused on a cohort of individuals charged with a criminal offense during a one-month period (October 2017). The work was well-received by lawmakers, and the 2021 General Assembly (Special Session I) passed legislation (House Bill 2110 and Senate Bill 1391) directing the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission to continue this work on an annual basis. Virginia’s work in the area of pretrial data collection has begun to receive national attention.

For the newest pretrial study, the Sentencing Commission selected individuals with pretrial contact events during Calendar Year (CY) 2018. This period of time was selected in order to establish a pre-COVID baseline of pretrial data. For individuals with more than one contact event during the period, only the first event was selected. Individuals were tracked for a minimum of 15 months (until the disposition of the case or March 31, 2020, whichever occurred first). Data for the Project was obtained from numerous criminal justice agencies in Virginia. Compiling the data into a unified dataset requires numerous iterations of matching, merging and data cleaning to ensure accuracy when linking information from the respective data systems to each defendant in the cohort. More than 500 data elements were captured for each defendant, including demographics, charging details, criminal history records, pretrial release status, bond type and amount, court appearance by the defendant, new criminal arrest during the pretrial period, and final dispositions. For the current study, the Sentencing Commission largely replicated the approach established by the Crime Commission in the original study. This permits comparisons of the findings from the CY2018 cohort to those from the October 2017 cohort used in the prior analysis. The overall CY2018 cohort contains nearly 356,000 adult defendants.

This report focuses on the 96,135 adult defendants whose contact event in CY2018 included a charge for a new criminal offense punishable by incarceration where a bail determination was made by a judicial officer (i.e., a magistrate or judge). Other defendants, such as those released on a summons, were not analyzed for this report. This report presents a descriptive analysis of the 96,135 defendants, their key characteristics, how these defendants proceeded through the pretrial system, and outcomes.

Statewide descriptive findings contained in this report cannot explain why differences may exist across groups of defendants, nor can it suggest any causal relationships. A deeper understanding of the relationships among factors and the impact each factor may have on pretrial decision making and outcomes is required. In the coming months, the Sentencing Commission will conduct additional analysis of the CY2018 pretrial dataset using sophisticated multivariate statistical techniques and will issue supplemental reports as that work is completed. Furthermore, the Sentencing Commission will continue to explore ways to expand and improve the information available through the Pretrial Data Project. Ultimately, the annual replication of the Project can be used to inform policy and practice and provide a platform for discussion on pretrial matters in the Commonwealth in the years to come.

KEY FINDINGS

Presented below are key descriptive findings from the Sentencing Commission’s study of the 96,135 adult defendants whose pretrial contact event in CY2018 included a new criminal offense punishable by incarceration where a bail determination was made by a judicial officer. The findings are largely consistent with the findings of the Crime Commission’s previous study of the October 2017 cohort.

• The majority of defendants (86.8%) were ultimately released from custody during the pretrial period; only 13.2% of the defendants were detained throughout the pretrial period. Of released defendants, most (85.6%) were released within three days of their contact event (Tables 8 and 17).

• Females were more likely to be released pretrial than males (93.6% versus 84.2%) and Whites were more likely to be released than blacks (88.0% versus 85.2%). Non-indigent defendants were more likely to be released than defendants categorized as indigent (94.6% versus 81.4%) – (Table 9).

• Approximately 46% of the defendants were charged with a felony offense, while 54% were charged with a misdemeanor or special class offense as the most serious offense in the contact event (Table 3).

• Defendants charged with a felony were much more likely to be detained throughout the pretrial period compared to those charged with a misdemeanor only, with detention rates of 22.3% and 5.3%, respectively (Table 11).

• A large majority of released defendants (87.6%) were not charged with failure to appear at court proceedings for the offense(s) in the CY2018 contact event (Table 37).

• Fewer than one in four (22.4%) of released defendants had a new in-state arrest for an offense punishable by incarceration during the pretrial period (Table 41).

• The majority of the new arrests were for misdemeanor offenses; only 8.2% of released defendants were charged with a new felony, with only 2.2% charged with a new violent felony offense as defined in § 17.1-805 (Table 41).

• Compared to defendants who were not identified as indigent, a higher proportion of indigent defendants were charged with failure to appear and were more likely to have a new in-state arrest for an offense punishable by incarceration during the pretrial period (Tables 38 and 42).

• The proportion of released defendants charged with failure to appear or who had a new in-state arrest for an offense punishable by incarceration during the pretrial period increased as the defendants’ Public Safety Assessment (PSA) scores increased, suggesting that the PSA may be a useful tool in pretrial release decision making (Tables 39 and 43; Charts 6 and 8).

• Among released defendants, 59.4% were released on a personal recognizance or unsecured bond, while 40.6% were released on a secured bond. Females were more likely than males, Whites were more likely than Blacks, and non-indigent were more likely than indigent defendants to be released on personal recognizance/unsecured bond versus a secured bond (Table 18).

• Median secured bond amounts were $2,500 for felony contact events and $2,000 for misdemeanor contact events (Tables 28 and 29).

• Secured bond amounts at the time of release generally did not vary widely across sex, race, indigency status, or whether the defendant received supervision by a Pretrial Services Agency (Table 25).

• Approximately 60% of the 96,135 defendants examined were convicted of at least one offense in the contact event (original or reduced charge). Conviction rates varied somewhat across sex, race, and indigency status, with males, Whites and non-indigent defendants convicted at slightly higher rates than defendants in other categories (Tables 51 and 52).

• Defendants who were detained during the entire pretrial period had a significantly higher conviction rate compared to defendants who were released during the pretrial period, 76.4% versus 57.6% (Table 53).

• Defendants represented by a retained attorney were released at a higher rate during the pretrial period (94.5%) compared to defendants represented by a public defender or court-appointed attorney (with 83.0% and 80.9% of defendants released, respectively); however, this is based on the type of attorney at case closure, which may not accurately reflect the type of attorney when the pretrial release decision was made (Table 16).

• Defendants represented by a retained attorney were convicted of at least one offense in the contact event at a slightly higher rate (65.0%) than defendants represented by a public defender or court-appointed attorney, with conviction rates of 57.6% and 61.0%, respectively (Table 54).

• Defendants who were male, Black, or between ages of 18 and 35 were significantly overrepresented among pretrial defendants compared to their overall representation within Virginia’s population (Table 1).
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(*1) See Virginia State Crime Commission. (2021). Virginia Pretrial Data Project: Final Report.