Research Brief
A series of reports summarizing current research from CJA
No. 36
January 2015 Executive Director, Jerome E. McElroy
Director, Research Dept., Richard R. Peterson, Ph.D. Research Brief Editor & Deputy Director, Research, Mary T. Phillips, Ph.D. Graphics & Production, Raymond P. Caligiure Administrative Associate, Annie Su
CJA is a not-for-profit corporation that provides a variety of criminal justice services under a contract with the City of New York. CJA staff interview defendants arrested in New York City, make recommendations for pretrial release, and notify released defendants of upcoming court dates. CJA also operates two supervised release programs for nonviolent felony clients in Queens and Manhattan. The Research Department conducts studies addressing a broad array of criminal justice policy concerns. The Research Brief series summarizes the results of some of these studies.
New York City Criminal Justice Agency, Inc. 52 Duane Street New York, NY 10007 PHONE: 646 213-2500 FAX: 646 213-2650 WEB: www.nycja.org
© 2015 NYC Criminal Justice Agency, Inc.
IMPACT OF THE QUEENS SUPERVISED RELEASE PROGRAM ON LEGAL OUTCOMES By Freda F. Solomon, Ph.D.
On August 3, 2009, CJA introduced an experimental pretrial community supervision program in Queens County. The program is designed to reduce unnecessary pretrial detention. It provides the Court with a release alternative to money bail for some defendants who do not pose a substantial risk of pretrial misconduct. The Queens Supervised Release (QSR) program is offered to judges at Criminal Court arraignment only in cases prosecuted for non-violent felony charges with a high likelihood of having bail set. In program-eligible cases, defendants must also satisfy a number of other conditions during a rigorous pre-arraignment screening process before the program can be offered for judicial consideration. In addition, defense attorneys serve as gatekeepers to ensure to the fullest extent possible that the program is offered only in cases in which defendants are the most likely to be held on bail leaving Criminal Court arraignment and not as an alternative to recognizance release. This study addressed the impact of community supervision on: • conviction rates • conviction charge severity • sentencing for convictions • case processing times To begin to assess the program’s impact on these outcomes, program cases were compared with those in a pre-program Queens data set having similar charge and defendant characteristics. This Research Brief is adapted from CJA’s Queens County Supervised Release Program: Impact on Court Processing and Outcomes (2013) by Freda F. Solomon, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow The full report is available on CJA’s web site: www.nycja.org/library.php Research Assistance: Jonathan Carmona Systems Programming: Geraldine Staehs-Goirn Address comments to the author at fsolomon@nycja.org Please cite as follows, adapted to your citation style: Solomon, Freda F. 2015. “Impact of the Queens Supervised Release Program on Legal Outcomes” Research Brief series, no. 36 New York: New York City Criminal Justice Agency, Inc.
QSR Program Sample The QSR program client cases in the study consisted of the 833 clients who had been admitted since the program’s beginning and had exited as of October 31, 2012. All of these represent cases in which defendants were released at Criminal Court arraignment. In addition to examining overall case processing and court outcomes, the client cases were divided into three groups. Of the program participants 728 (87%) successfully satisfied QSR’s supervision requirements as of the date they exited the program. These were categorized as successful. Among the remaining 105 clients, 83 (10% of all exited program participants) had an unsuccessful outcome, most of which either had bail set on a re-arrest or were exited due to failure to comply with program requirements. Twenty-two (3%) were terminated for other than in-program misconduct reasons, e.g. an immigration or parole hold or because of detention imposed on a previous case.
It was not possible to fully match pre-program and program cases and defendants because not all program criteria are computerized elements in the CJA database. However, pre-program and program characteristics were compared where possible to ensure that they were similar in the ways that we could measure. For example, the types of cases based on the first charge at Criminal Court arraignment were similar (Figure 1). Drug charges made up the greatest proportion of both pre-program and program cases, and B-felony severity charges made up the overwhelming majority of these cases. Property crimes, almost all of which involved either grand larceny or possession
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Pre-Program Comparison Sample For this study 2,799 pre-program cases with similar characteristics were used for comparison. These cases were selected from among those arraigned in the Queens County Criminal Court on felony charges in calendar year 2008, the last full year prior to the start of QSR. Because the program is intended as an alternative to the use of bail leading to pretrial detention leaving Criminal Court arraignment, the preprogram cases were divided into groups based on pretrial release/detention status. The first group consists of 700 cases in which defendants were never released prior to disposition, and the second consists of 766 in which defendants were released at some point after Criminal Court arraignment (released post-arraignment). As a point of contrast the third group consists of 1,333 cases in which defendants had been released on recognizance (ROR) at arraignment (released at arraignment).
Figure 1
Crime Category of Arraignment Charges Comparing Pre-Program with Program Cases Pre-Program
Program
49%
Drug
53%
33%
Property
Harm
Other
31%
8% 12%
10% 5%
of stolen property charges, made up the second largest category for both groups of cases. These two categories combined accounted for over 80% of both groups’ cases. The remaining charges were combined into two additional crime categories. The harm category includes cases with the non-VFO D-felony robbery charge (PL 160.05). For program clients this also includes a small number of ineligible charges when the case was accepted based on a judicial referral. All remaining charge-eligible cases were placed in the residual “other” charge category. Demographic characteristics — age, sex, ethnicity — also were compared and were found to be almost identical in the two samples (not shown).
January 2015
Research Brief Conviction Rates The majority of pre-program and program cases ended with a conviction, virtually all by guilty pleas. In this regard community supervision in lieu of detention on bail leaving Criminal Court arraignment has not altered the initial adjudication or method of obtaining convictions in the felony cases of QSR program participants. A conviction was the first adjudicated outcome in 82% of the pre-program cases and in 87% of all the exited program cases (Figure 2). Convictions include those adjourned for sentencing, some of which ultimately may have been dismissed after successful completion of a treatment court program.
Figure 2 Conviction Rates
Comparing Pre-Program with Program Cases 87%
82%
Among pre-program cases (Figure 2A), the likelihood of a conviction was highest in the cases of defendants who had no pretrial release (94%) and lowest in the cases of defendants released at arraignment (76%). Among program cases (Figure 2B), the conviction rate for successful program client cases was 89%. This was lower than among the pre-program cases of defendants without any pretrial release (94%), but higher than the rates for all other preprogram cases (81% for those released post-arraignment and 76% for those released at arraignment).
Figure 2A Conviction Rates
By Release Status For Pre-Program Cases
94% 76%
Never Released Released At Released Post-Arraignment Arraignment
Research Brief #36
All All Pre-Program Program Cases Cases
Figure 2B Conviction Rates
By Exit Status For Program Cases
89% 81%
74%
77%
Successful Unsuccessful Other Termination
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Conviction Charge Severity There appears to be a relationship between pretrial release status and conviction charge severity. Among pre-program cases, defendants released at arraignment were the least likely to be convicted of a felony charge. Among program cases, successful clients were the least likely to be convicted of a felony charge. Among all convicted preFigure 3A program cases (Figure 3A) about Severity of Conviction Charge a third (34%) had a felony conBy Release Status For Pre-Program Cases viction charge while over half of the convictions were for a misde4% meanor crime (56%) and a tenth 100% 9% 10% 15% (10%) were convictions to lesser severity offenses. Pre-program 51% cases with an arraignment re49% 56% lease were the least likely to have 64% a felony conviction charge (21%) and the most likely to have a conviction for either a misdemeanor 42% 45% 45% 42% (64%) or lesser severity charge 34% 21% (15%). Conversely, defendants 21% in the pre-program cases without 0% any pretrial release or a post-ar- Never Released Released At All Pre-Program Released Post-Arraignment Arraignment Convicted Cases raignment release were the most likely to have a felony-severity conviction charge, 45% and 42% Felony Misdemeanor Lesser Severity respectively. Among all program client cases (Figure 3B) over a third (36%) had a felony conviction, less than half a misdemeanor (47%) and 17% were convicted of a lesserseverity offense. In program cases, convicted successful clients were the least likely to have a felony conviction (33%) and the most likely to have a conviction to a lesser-severity offense (18%). Conversely, convictions in the small percentage of cases of unsuccessful program clients were the most likely to be for a felony charge (69%).
Figure 3B
Severity of Conviction Charge By Exit Status For Program Cases
100%
5% 12%
18%
17%
26% 47%
49%
47%
69% 33%
45%
42%
41%
21%
36%
0% Successful Unsuccessful
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Other Termination
All Program Convicted Cases
January 2015
Research Brief Sentencing for Convictions The type of sentence imposed for a conviction is associated with severity of conviction charge. Convictions to non-felony charges and the use of conditional discharge (CD) sentences are far more prevalent among the convicted and sentenced cases of pre-program defendants released at Criminal Court arraignment and successful program clients. The imposition of an imprisonment sentence, most often in conjunction with a conviction to a felony severity charge, was most commonly found among convicted and sentenced cases of never released pre-program defendants and program clients who had an unsuccessful or other termination exit from the Supervised Release program. Approximately a third (34%) of all convicted and sentenced pre-program cases had an imprisonment sentence imposed and somewhat less than twofifths (39%) had a conditional discharge sentence (Figure 4A). The imprisonment rate was highest among the cases of neverreleased defendants (77%). The conditional discharge rate was highest among the cases of defendants released at Criminal Court arraignment (56%). The overall imprisonment rate for program cases (18%) was about half that of all pre-program cases (Figure 4B). The overwhelming majority of program clients in convicted and sentenced cases exited under successful conditions of compliance, and only about 10% of these had any imprisonment time imposed at sentencing. When unsuccessful or terminated for other reasons, the likelihood of an imprisonment sentence was only slightly lower for the program cases than for the pre-program cases with never released defendants.
Research Brief #36
Figure 4A
Most Severe Type of Sentence By Release Status For Pre-Program Cases 100%
1% 12%
9%
10%
16%
10% 39%
39% 56% 77%
45%
0%
18%
23%
42%
29%
19%
21%
9% Never Released
Released Post-Arraignment
Imprisonment
Released At Arraignment
Probation
34%
All Pre-Program Sentenced Cases
CD
Fine
Figure 4B
Most Severe Type of Sentence By Exit Status For Program Cases
100%
6%
12%
13%
16%
53%
58% 75%
72% 19%
0%
11%
19%
45%
18%
42%
21% 18%
10%
Successful Unsuccessful
Other Termination
All Program Sentenced Cases
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Case Processing Time In comparison with pre-program cases of defendants released at or subsequent to Criminal Court arraignment, program participation does not appear to have a significant impact on case processing times. In fact, average case processing times for successful program clients were less than the average times for the pre-program cases of defendants with a pretrial release. The overall average time for pre-program cases (Figure 5A) from Criminal Court arraignment to a court appearance with an adjudicated outcome (conviction, ACD or a dismissal or acquittal) was 136 days, including the cases without any pretrial release. The average time for cases of never released defendants was the shortest, 81 days, and longest was for the cases of defendants released post-arraignment. The average time for defendants released at arraignment, and the most similar to program clients, was 141 days.   The overall average time for program cases (Figure 5B) from arraignment to an adjudicated outcome was 132 days. For successful program clients, the overwhelming majority of the program cases, the average time was 125 days, shorter than any pre-program category of released defendants. The longest average time across all groups was 195 days, for the cases of unsuccessful program clients, somewhat longer than the time for pre-program cases of defendants released postarraignment.
Figure 5A
Case Processing Times By Release Status For Adjudicated Pre-Program Cases Never Released
Number of days from arraignment to adjudicated outcome
81
Released Post-Arraignment
179
Released at Arraignment
141
All Pre-Program Cases
136
Figure 5B
Case Processing Times By Exit Status For Adjudicated Program Cases 125
Successful
195
Unsuccessful Other Termination
173
All Program Cases
132
Drug and Property Crime Cases
Su b
g ro
up
These patterns continued to be found when the study separately examined cases sharing charge and defendant characteristics in the drug and property crime categories, the two largest categories for both pre-program and program cases. (See full report for data.) There were high conviction rates by guilty pleas but the severity of the conviction charge and type of sentence varied by release status for defendants in pre-program cases and by exit status for cases of program clients. However, among adjudicated drug cases successful program clients were far more likely to have the conviction entered in a treatment court.
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January 2015
Research Brief Summary and Conclusions Although the pre-program cases do not provide identical comparison groups for analysis with program cases, they are sufficiently similar to draw some preliminary inferences about the impact of the Queens Supervised Release (QSR) program on case processing and court outcomes. Release of program defendants at Criminal Court arraignment does not appear to affect the ability of the Queens District Attorney’s Office to successfully prosecute these cases. There were and continue to be very high conviction rates in the types of cases and defendants eligible for QSR and convictions continue to be almost entirely by guilty pleas. Pretrial release status has a strong relationship with conviction charge severities and sentencing patterns. Conviction to a non-felony charge and a non-incarcerative sentence was greatest among pre-program cases of released defendants, and among cases of successful program clients, which comprise the majority of all program cases. Conviction to a felony charge and/or an incarceration sentence was greatest among the cases of never released pre-program defendants and the small number of unsuccessful program clients. In this regard the program does appear to have altered legal outcomes for most program clients for whom community-supervised release was substituted for pretrial bail detention leaving Criminal Court arraignment. Release of clients in program cases does not appear to prolong case processing times when compared with the length of case processing among pre-program cases in which there was a pretrial release of defendants. In fact, case processing times for client cases were slightly shorter than among released pre-program cases, although longer than the time required to adjudicate cases of never released defendants. Among drug cases, the program to date has experienced a noticeably higher rate of adjudica-
Research Brief #36
tion in a treatment courtroom for successful program clients in comparison with the pre-program cases of defendants arraigned on a B or D felony drug charge. To what extent the program intervention contributes to the higher rates of adjudication in a treatment court cannot be statistically studied from the available data. However, it is an intriguing finding and one that would be consistent with research into drug treatment courts that shows the beneficial impact of individualized engagement with drug-involved defendants. Jail displacement is among the goals of the supervised release program and in this regard the program appears to be successful. Virtually all cases arraigned on felony charges in New York City are continued at the Criminal Court arraignment appearance and the Queens Supervised Release program serves at the outset to displace this initial period of pretrial detention for defendants who otherwise would be in custody. As shown in the court outcome patterns among the pre-program cases, pleas to non-felony charges and non-incarceration sentences were far more likely to be imposed for a conviction among released defendants, and highest among defendants released at Criminal Court arraignment. A question when CJA began this program was whether sentences for conviction in program cases would simply substitute post-conviction imprisonment time for the absence of pretrial detention time. This has not happened. By securing the release of program clients, over 87% of whom exited successfully, a conditional discharge sentence was imposed in the overwhelming majority of sentenced program cases. In this regard one can conclude that there is a jail displacement effect beyond just the first adjournment period. However, it is not possible to determine the magnitude of this displacement because of an absence of information about the amount of post-sentence time defendants might need to serve after accounting for pretrial detention and other factors that affect incarceration time.
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Research Brief from No. 36 (January 2015) Impact of the Queens Supervised Release Program on Legal Outcomes The New York City Criminal Justice Agency, Inc. 52 Duane Street New York, NY 10007
TO:
The mission of the New York City Criminal Justice Agency, Inc., is to assist the courts and the City in reducing unnecessary pretrial detention.
Research Brief from No. 36 (January 2015) Impact of the Queens Supervised Release Program on Legal Outcomes Forthcoming: No. 37 (May 2015) Arrested and Homeless in NYC by Richard R. Peterson, Ph.D.
Most recently published in this series:
No. 35 (September 2014) Paying For Bail On Credit (Phillips) No. 34 (May 2014) Desk Appearance Tickets: Their Past, Present, and Possible Future (Phillips) No. 33 (January 2014) Case Processing in Brooklyn’s Integrated DV Court (Peterson) No. 32 (May 2013) Queens Supervised Release: A Brief Program Description (Curbelo et al.) No. 31 (January 2013) The EVE Project (Peterson) No. 30 (September 2012) New York City’s Bail System — A World Apart (Phillips) No. 29 (May 2012) Evaluation of Brooklyn’s Video Statement Program For DV Cases (Peterson) No. 28 (January 2012) Implementing Brooklyn’s Video Statement Program For DV Cases (Peterson) No. 27 (September 2011) How Release Type Affects Failure To Appear (Phillips)
Reports available at www.nycja.org/library.php