ROR Juvenile Outcomes 97

CJA

NEW YORK CITY CRIMINAL JUSTICE AGENCY, INC. NEW YORK CITY CRIMINAL USTICE AGENCY

Jerome E. McElroy Executive Director Mary A. Eckert, Ph.D. Associate Director of Research

IMPLEMENTATION OF A RELEASE-ON-RECOGNIZANCE RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS ARRAIGNED IN NEW YORK CITY ADULT COURTS A REPORT ON ARRAIGNMENT OUTCOMES: THE FIRST EIGHT MONTHS (April 28 through December 31, 1996)

Mary T. Phillips, Ph.D. Project Director

FINAL REPORT October 1997

52 Duane Street, New York, NY 10007

(646) 213-2500

IMPLEMENTATION OF A RELEASE-ON-RECOGNIZANCE RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS ARRAIGNED IN NEW YORK CITY ADULT COURTS A REPORT ON ARRAIGNMENT OUTCOMES: THE FIRST EIGHT MONTHS (April 28 through December 31, 1996)

Mary T. Phillips, Ph.D. Project Director

Dale Sealy Programmer / Analyst Aïda Tejaratchi Planning Associate Alisha Fenton Research Assistant

October 1997

This report can be downloaded from www.nycja.org/ research/ research.htm

© 1997 NYC Criminal Justice Agency, Inc.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures

i

I. Introduction

1

II. Development of the Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders Description of the Data File The Analytic Approach The Findings: Predictors of Failure to Appear

5 5 5 6

III. How JO Recommendations Are Made Juvenile Verification Summary Juvenile Offender Attachment Form CJA Recommendation

9 10 10 11

IV. Implementation  The First Eight Months Description of the Data File Description of the Sample Recommendation and Release Rates

13 14 15 17

V. Concluding Remarks

33

Appendix A Juvenile Offenses

39

Appendix B Comparison of Sentencing Options for YOs, JOs, and Adults

40

Appendix C Sample Juvenile Verification Summary

41

Appendix D Sample Juvenile Offender Attachment Form

42

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 1. Configurational Analysis Results Used in the Development of the Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

8

Table 1. Descriptive Data for Juvenile Offenders: Comparison of the 8-Month 1996 Sample With FY 1992

16

Table 2. CJA Recommendation for Juvenile Offenders by Borough

19

Table 3. Release Status at Criminal Court Arraignment for Juvenile Offenders

by Borough

20

Table 4. Release Status at Criminal Court Arraignment for Juvenile Offenders

by CJA Recommendation

22

Table 4A. Release Status at Criminal Court Arraignment for Juvenile Offenders

by CJA Recommendation and Borough

24

Table 5. Severity of Top Arrest Charge for Juvenile Offenders by Borough

27

Table 6. CJA Recommendation for Juvenile Offenders by Severity of Top Arrest Charge

29

Table 7. Release Status at Criminal Court Arraignment for Juvenile Offenders

by Severity of Top Arrest Charge

30

Table 8. Release Status at Criminal Court Arraignment for Juvenile Offenders

by CJA Recommendation and Severity of Top Arrest Charge

32

Table 9. Trends in Release Status at Criminal Court Arraignment for Juvenile Offenders 1982 - 1996

34

Table 10. Trends in Affidavit-Charge Severity for Juvenile Offenders 1982 - 1996

35

Table 11. Release Status at Criminal Court Arraignment for Juvenile Offenders

by Affidavit-Charge Severity (1996 and 1995)

37

i

On April 28, 1996, the New York City Criminal Justice Agency, Inc. (CJA) implemented a release-recommendation system for juvenile offenders arrested in New York City. This report describes the recommendation system and presents data on arraignment outcomes for juvenile offenders during the first eight months of the system’s operation.

We begin, in the Introduction, with a brief summary of the legislative background that mandated the processing of juvenile offenders in adult court, and CJA’s role in providing research and criminal justice services to New York City. Section II describes how CJA developed the release-recommendation system for juvenile offenders. Section III explains the procedures used by CJA staff to assign a recommendation category to each juvenile offender prior to arraignment. Section IV contains data describing the first group of juvenile offenders to be assigned a recommendation category by CJA, and their arraignment outcomes. We conclude, in the final section, with some comments on the decline in the proportion of juvenile offenders released at arraignment since 1992, and our plans to follow up this brief report with a larger study whose objective will be validation of the release-recommendation system.

I. Introduction In 1978 New York passed the Juvenile Offender Law as part of the Omnibus Crime Control Bill. This legislation created a "waiver-down" system for New York. In New York, 14- and 15-year-old juveniles arrested for certain serious felony offenses, and 13-year-olds arrested for second-degree murder, are prosecuted directly in the adult court as juvenile offenders (JOs).

Cases may subsequently be transferred down to juvenile court (Family Court in New York),

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where defendants (or respondents, as they are referred to in Family Court) are processed as juvenile delinquents. This is in contrast to the "waiver-up" system typical in most states, where original jurisdiction for all juvenile criminal arrests begins in the juvenile court, and a case may subsequently be transferred up to the adult court.

Although juvenile offenders are processed in the adult court system, the statutory sentencing options for them are less severe than for adults convicted of the same offenses. In addition, under certain conditions JOs are eligible for Youthful Offender (YO) status, which, if granted, further reduces the maximum sentence under the law and seals the record. (See Appendix A for a list of JO charges; see Appendix B for a comparison of sentences for YOs, JOs, and adults.)

The number of juveniles arraigned annually in New York City’s Criminal Courts has dropped more than 40 percent in the past five years, from 1,552 In Fiscal Year (FY) 1992 (July 1, 1991, through June 30, 1992), to under 900 in FY 1997 (July 1, 1996 through June 30, 1997).1 Nevertheless, concern remains about overcrowding in detention facilities operated by the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). This concern arises partly from the City’s plans to close Spofford Juvenile Center, the secure detention facility that houses youth under the age of 16 (juvenile delinquents as well as juvenile offenders). The two new facilities that will replace Spofford have a combined capacity of 248, which is less than the current capacity of 289 at Spofford.

And, although fewer JOs are being arraigned, a larger proportion of them are being held in detention. In FY 1992, 52 percent were released on recognizance at arraignment, compared to 37 percent for the last eight months of 1996. (Trends in release decisions for JOs are discussed in the concluding section; see also Tables 9 and 11.)

1

The data for FY 1997 are approximate and preliminary. It is beyond the scope of this report to attempt to explain this decrease, but it occurred during a period when the overall violent crime rate in New York City was decreasing.

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In 1993 the City joined with the Annie E. Casey Foundation in an initiative to reduce reliance on secure detention for juveniles. As part of this initiative, which is referred to as the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), CJA conducted research to provide a system for making release recommendations for JOs at arraignment that would serve a purpose comparable to a recommendation system already in place for adults.

CJA is a not-for-profit corporation that provides a variety of criminal justice services to the City of New York through a contract with the Mayor’s Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator. These services consist of four principal activities. The first is to interview arrestees prearraignment in order to provide prosecutors, defense counsel, and judges with background information regarding arrestees’ community ties. The community-ties information is used for the release-recommendation system, which is based on the likelihood that individual defendants, if released, would appear for subsequent court appearances. The second activity is to notify released defendants of future court appearances; the third is to perform research and evaluation regarding issues related to the effective operation of criminal justice processes in New York City; and the fourth, begun in July 1997, is to operate a Central Court Screening Service to identify defendants who might be eligible for the various alternative-to-incarceration programs funded through the Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator.

As the agency responsible for making release-on-recognizance (ROR) recommendations to judges at Criminal Court (adult lower court) arraignment, CJA performed extensive research in 1974, resulting in an empirically validated release-recommendation scheme. The CJA adult recommendation is based on the pre-arraignment interview regarding community ties. However, the research was performed prior to the passage of the JO law, and juveniles were not included.

Once the JO law was passed and juveniles began to be arraigned in adult court, they were inter-

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viewed but their interview forms were stamped "Juvenile Offender: For Information Only," in place of a recommendation.

In 1987 CJA released a study that examined release status and failure to appear (FTA) for a sample of 1982 JOs, and concluded that a separate recommendation system for JOs was both feasible and preferable to using the adult criteria.2 The recommendations of that study were never implemented, however, because the number of JOs arraigned in New York City was small, and the resources were not available to develop a JO release-recommendation system at that time. JOs continued to be interviewed “For Information Only.�

In 1996 a new JO research project was completed under the direction of Laura A. Winterfield,3 and the resulting JO recommendation system was implemented on April 28, 1996. Like the adult recommendation system, the system for JOs reflects the likelihood that the defendant will appear at subsequent court appearances if released. However, because the life circumstances of juveniles differ from those of adults, the factors found to be important in predicting whether they would appear in court are not the same as those for adults. The 1996 research is summarized in Section II.

2

Metchik, Eric, Recommending Juvenile Offenders for Pretrial Release. CJA, December 1987.

3

Winterfield, Laura A., Developing a Release-On-Recognizance System for Juveniles Arraigned in New York City Adult Courts. CJA, May 1996.

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II.

Development of the Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders The recommendation system was developed empirically by analyzing the factors that were

associated with failure to appear (FTA) for a scheduled court appearance for all JOs arrested during a one-year period. This section describes the database that was used, the analytic approach, and the conclusions reached.

Description of the Data File All JOs arrested during FY 1992 whose cases were prosecuted in adult court in New York City were included in the data file. This produced a file containing 1,552 cases. The file included information about the arrest, including the charges, victim information, and weapon use.

It also contained data about the defendant’s prior criminal record and information provided through the CJA pre-arraignment interview, such as living situation, employment status, school attendance, and other items indicative of community ties. In addition, the file contained detailed case-processing data, including release status, the amount of bail set, hearing outcomes, final disposition, and sentence if convicted.

The Analytic Approach A subsample of “at-risk� cases was selected for the analysis. To be at risk of failing to appear for a court appearance, a defendant had to have been released from detention at some point during the processing of the case. The at-risk subsample included every JO who was released, either on recognizance or on bail, at any time before final disposition. By this criterion, there were 1,196 defendants in the total sample who were at risk of failure.

A standard multivariate statistical technique, logistic regression, was applied to the at-risk sample but the results were not fruitful. The FTA rate was already so low for JOs (about 8%), and the effects of all the independent variables tested were so small, that the models produced by -5-

this method were no improvement over simply predicting that no released defendant would fail to appear, assuming that judges continued current patterns of releasing JOs. Such a prediction would be correct about 92 percent of the time, would produce no false positives (predictions of FTA when there was no FTA) and would produce about 8 percent false negatives (predictions of no FTA when there was FTA).

Consequently, logistic regression was rejected in favor of a different approach, called configuration analysis. This technique can be described in terms of a decision tree, in which the branches represent various groupings of defendants with different FTA rates based on factors that affect FTA. If any additional factor affects the FTA rate within any of the first-level branches, then a second level of branching occurs, based on the second factor. The process stops when either the numbers in the individual branches become too small for further analysis, or no more statistically significant factors are found.

The decision tree can best be illustrated with the actual findings in this study.

The Findings: Predictors of Failure to Appear First the statistical correlation was computed between FTA and each potential predictor.

The factor with the strongest statistical relationship to FTA among the JOs in the at-risk sample turned out to be school attendance. For those with either full- or part-time school attendance that was verified,4 the FTA rate was 6 percent. For JOs for whom there was verification of no school attendance, the FTA rate was 21 percent. For these two groups, the analysis stopped at

4

During the interview the arrestee is asked for the name and telephone number of someone who could verify information given by the arrestee. This contact person is called by CJA staff. If the contact person confirms the information given by the arrestee, either “Yes verified” or “No verified” is recorded. If the contact cannot be reached, the arrestee’s answer is recorded as “Yes” or “No” without verification. If the contact person gives information that conflicts with the arrestee’s statement, and this conflict cannot be resolved by further questions, the response is recorded as an “Unresolved Conflict.”

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this point because there were too few (39) with “verified no school attendance” for any further analysis, and there was no other factor significantly related to FTA rate among the group with “verified school attendance.” At this first decision point, it made sense that those with verified school attendance could be “recommended,” and those with verified no school attendance could be “not recommended” for release on recognizance.

That left a large group (397, or over a third of the at-risk sample) whose school status could not be verified because the contact person was not reached, or the defendant’s statement regarding school attendance conflicted with statements made by the contact. For this group, there was one additional factor with a significant relationship to FTA. This factor was whether the juvenile expected someone (a family member or a friend) to come to the arraignment. (Because the recommendation is made prior to arraignment, it is not possible to verify whether someone does in fact come to the arraignment.) Those who expected someone at arraignment had an FTA rate that was lower (10%) than those who did not expect anyone (16%). So for those whose school status was not verified, a second branching was created by further dividing this group into those who expected someone at arraignment and those who did not expect anyone. Figure 1 on the following page illustrates these findings.

There were no additional factors that affected FTA significantly for either of the secondlevel branches, so these branches were not divided any further.

The analysis thus produced four branches, two with a low FTA rate of between 6 and 10 percent, who could be classified as recommended (shaded, on the left in Fig. 1), and the other two with a higher rate of between 16 and 21 percent, who could be classified as not recommended (on the right in Fig. 1).

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Figure 1 CONFIGURATIONAL ANALYSIS RESULTS USED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELEASE-RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS Based on FY 1992 JO Arrests JOs who were at risk of failure N = 1196* 8.4% FTA

School Attendance

Yes Verified N=646 6% FTA

No verification (yes or no), or Conflicting statements made by contact and defendant N=397

No Verified N=39 21% FTA

Expects Someone at Arraignment Yes N=304 10% FTA

No N=93 16% FTA

* The individual branches sum to 1,082, excluding 114 cases that are missing data on school attendance, expects someone at arraignment, or both.

Adapted from Winterfield, Laura A., Developing a Release-On-Recognizance System for Juveniles Arraigned in New York City Adult Courts. CJA, May 1996.

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The full JO recommendation scheme that was developed from this information, and the procedures for administering it, are described in Section III. As will be seen, 70 percent of the FY 1992 JOs would have received a positive recommendation under this system. (Figure 1 cannot be used to calculate this percentage, because only those who were released at some point during the pendency of their cases are included in the figure.)

III.

How JO Recommendations Are Made The CJA staff who conduct pre-arraignment interviews for adults continue to interview

JOs, as they have done in the past. On April 28, 1996, however, the procedures for interviewing JOs changed in order to implement the new recommendation system. A Procedural Manual for Juvenile Offenders was prepared by CJA’s Planning Department5 to acquaint CJA interviewers with the new procedures, and training sessions were conducted prior to implementation.

Interviewers are instructed to use the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) designation to identify juvenile offenders. Arrestees who claim to be 16 years old or older, but are identified by the NYPD as JOs, are processed as JOs. Arrestees who claim to be under 16 years of age, but who are not identified by the NYPD as JOs, are processed as adults. In either instance, interviewers are instructed to record on the interview form the age given by the arrestee, even if it does not accord with the NYPD designation. Should this happen, interviewers are to write “Possible age conflict” on the report, and on the reverse side of the report check “Juvenile  YES” or “NO,” as the case may be according to the NYPD, with the notation “as per PD.”

5

Tejaratchi, Aida, New York City Criminal Justice Agency Procedural Manual for Juvenile Offenders, CJA Planning Department, October 1995.

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The CJA Interview Report is still used to interview juvenile offenders, and the standard “Recommendation Basis” section (on the back of the CJA Interview Report) is still completed for JOs as well as for adults. Although release recommendations for JOs are not based on the responses recorded in this section, the information is collected for research purposes, as it has been in the past. The difference is that two new sections have been added for JOs. These are the Juvenile Verification Summary and the Juvenile Offender Attachment Form. The Juvenile Offender Attachment Form contains the information determining the CJA Recommendation for JOs. A brief description of each of these elements follows.

Juvenile Verification Summary The “Verification Summary” section on the front of the CJA Interview Report was redesigned for JOs in order to make school attendance a separate category. The “Juvenile Verification Summary” comes as a sticker that is to be affixed over the adult Verification Summary printed on the form. It is reproduced in Appendix C. Juvenile Offender Attachment Form This form contains the “Juvenile Offender Recommendation Basis,” which consists of questions about school attendance and whether the defendant expects someone at arraignment.

For question 1 (Is the defendant in school full or part time?), the interviewer records any one of the following responses: Yes  Checked if the defendant stated that he or she attends school full or part time, but the contact person could not be reached for verification. Full-time attendance is defined as 5 or more hours of classes a day, 5 days a week. Anything less than this is considered part time. Arrestees interviewed during the summer are asked if they attended school the previous term and are enrolled for the fall term; if so, they are asked if their attendance is full or part time.

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Yes verified  Checked if the juvenile stated that he or she attends school full or part time, and the contact person verified that information.

No  Checked if the juvenile stated that he or she does not attend school, but the contact person could not be reached for verification.

No verified  Checked if the juvenile stated that he or she does not attend school, and the contact person verified that information.

Unresolved Conflict  Checked if the juvenile and the contact person gave conflicting information about the defendant’s school status, and the conflict could not be resolved. It does not matter whether the juvenile stated that he or she does or does not attend school, if the statement was inconsistent with what the contact person stated.

For Question 2 (Does defendant expect someone at arraignment?) the only responses are “Yes” or “No,” as stated by the juvenile. Verification is not attempted for this question.

The attachment form, which is stapled to the back of CJA’s copy of the CJA Interview Report, is reproduced in Appendix D. CJA Recommendation On the front of the CJA Interview Report is a space for the interviewer to stamp the release recommendation. Prior to April 28, 1996, all JOs received the stamp “Juvenile: For Information Only” [4E]. Beginning April 28, 1996, JOs receive a release-recommendation stamp, determined in the following way: JUVENILE OFFENDER: RECOMMENDED. Juveniles who claim that they are enrolled in school either full or part time, and for whom this response is verified, receive a stamp of “Juvenile Offender: Recommended” (J5). In addition, juveniles whose school status (in school or not in school) could not be verified, or whose school status could not be confirmed due to an unre-

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solved conflict, but who expect someone at arraignment, receive a Recommended stamp.6 JUVENILE OFFENDER: NOT RECOMMENDED. Juveniles who claim that they are not enrolled in school, and for whom this response is confirmed, receive a stamp of “Juvenile Offender: Not Recommended” (J6). In addition, juveniles whose school status either could not be verified, or whose school status could not be confirmed due to an unresolved conflict, and who do not expect someone at arraignment, receive a Not Recommended stamp.

NO RECOMMENDATION. Some policy considerations exclude adults from receiving a recommendation, and these apply also to juveniles. There are four reasons that a JO (or adult) might receive a stamp of “No Recommendation” (J7): an outstanding bench warrant (J7A), no NYSID sheet7 (J7B), arrest on a murder charge (J7C); or an incomplete interview (J7D).

The allocation of JO stamps is summarized in the box below.

ALLOCATION OF JUVENILE OFFENDER STAMPS [J7] Juvenile Offender: No Recommendation Due To: [J7A] A. Bench Warrant Attached to NYSID [J7B] B. No NYSID Available [J7C] C. Murder Charge (125.25 or 110/125.25) [J7D] D. Interview Incomplete [J6] Juvenile Offender: Not Recommended [J5] Juvenile Offender: Recommended

6

It may seem counter-intuitive to assign a positive recommendation to a JO who says he or she is not attending school when this cannot be verified just because the child is expecting someone at arraignment. Nevertheless, the data do justify this decision. For JOs who said they were not in school, and this was unverified, there was a large difference in FTA rates between those who were expecting someone at arraignment (FTA = 0) and those who were not expecting anyone (FTA = 19%). However, the number of cases in this group was very small (43 “no unverified” for school attendance, subdivided into 27 who expected someone at arraignment and 16 who did not). In the study that is planned to validate the recommendation scheme, we will pay particular attention to the predictors of FTA for these subgroups to determine if these findings are replicated.

7

NYSID (or “RAP”) sheets are initiated by the defendant’s fingerprints and describe his or her criminal history. After the defendant is fingerprinted, the prints are transmitted electronically to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) in Albany. A few hours later DCJS returns a NYSID sheet to Central Booking, and CJA staff use it to transcribe the defendant’s New York State Identification (NYSID) number and criminal history information onto the CJA Interview Report.

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Priority order is from top (J7) to bottom (J5). When the juvenile meets the criteria for more than one stamp, the Interview Report is stamped with the recommendation category with the highest priority. For example, if a bench warrant is attached, the form is stamped “Juvenile Offender: No Recommendation Due To: A. Bench Warrant Attached to NYSID� regardless of any other categories for which the juvenile may also qualify.

IV. ImplementationThe First Eight Months The remainder of this report presents arraignment outcome data from the date of implementation of the JO recommendation system, April 28, 1996, through the end of the calendar year. A larger study including arrests through June 30, 1997, will be forthcoming, but in the interim this report provides some basic information about the parameters of the 1996 JO population and the operation of the new recommendation system. In the interests of providing this information quickly, we limit this report to the distribution of recommendation categories and the release and bail decisions made at Criminal Court arraignment. The only additional item examined here is charge severity, which we analyze for its possible effects on the release decision, in combination with recommendation category. This report does not include data on failure to appear, as that would have required many additional months of data collection and file preparation in order to include appearances following transfer to Supreme Court. FTA rates will be analyzed in the forthcoming validation study.

Before presenting arraignment outcome data, we first describe the data file and then present some descriptive statistics comparing the characteristics of the 1996 sample with the FY 1992 sample used to develop the release-recommendation system.

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Description of the Data File In order to provide criminal justice information and research services, CJA maintains an arrest-based, automated database containing detailed information on all New York City arrests, court appearances, and case dispositions in Criminal Court and Supreme Court. From this database we selected all cases that fit the criteria for JOs arrested on April 28, 1996, through December 31, 1996. Within this date range, the criteria for selection were operationalized as follows: •

age is 14 or 15 at the time of arrest and the top arrest charge is a JO charge (see Appendix A for JO charges); or

•

age is 13 and the top arrest charge is second-degree murder; or

•

the CJA recommendation category is J5, J6, or J7 (or 4E, the category used for juveniles prior to implementation of the recommendation system).

To the cases selected using these criteria were added two April 27 arrests because the juve-

niles were interviewed by CJA staff on April 28 and were assigned a JO recommendation category according to the new procedures. These cases were discovered when the JO interview forms were collected for entry of additional items not routinely entered into the CJA database.

The additional interview items were not used for this report, but they will be analyzed in the forthcoming validation study.

Finally, all cases that were transferred to Family Court prior to Criminal Court arraignment were deleted from the data file. An additional 119 non-docketed cases (including voided arrests and cases that were declined prosecution) were not included in the analysis.

Several months were spent cleaning the data to clarify the status of defendants with inconsistent records: those who seemed to meet the age and charge criteria for JO status, but who were assigned an adult recommendation category; and those who were given a JO recommendation stamp but apparently did not meet the criteria for age or charge. If other sources (e.g., the

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Office of Court Administration; data for other cases for the same defendant in the CJA database; or the CJA Interview Report) confirmed that the defendant was not within the age range for a JO, the case was eliminated from the analysis. If other sources indicated that the defendant was a JO, the appropriate correction was made in the data file. Cases with remaining discrepancies as to date of birth were not included in the analysis. If the age and charge met the criteria for a JO, we included the case in the analysis even if the third criterion  CJA recommendation category  was not met. Likewise, if the age and CJA recommendation category met the criteria for a JO, we included the case in the analysis even if the charge was not a JO offense.

The resulting analytic file contained 548 JO cases that were arraigned in Criminal Court during the last eight months of 1996. Since this is an arrest-based file, the same defendant with more than one arrest is counted as many times as he or she was arrested within the time range of the study.1 Description of the Sample Table 1 presents some descriptive data for the sample of JOs, and in a separate column presents comparable information describing the juveniles in the FY 1992 data set used in the research to develop the recommendation system. Note that the FY 1992 data are for an entire year, whereas the 1996 data cover only eight months. The numbers reported for FY 1992 are therefore not directly comparable to the numbers for 1996, but the percentages can be compared.

A JO arrested in 1996 was most likely to be 15 years old (65%), male (89%), black (65%), a resident of Brooklyn (38%), with no prior felony convictions (100%), and charged with robbery (84%).

This profile is very similar to the profile of 1992 JOs.

1

The number of defendants with more than one arrest during the study period was very small: 12 defendants had two cases in the data file, and two additional defendants had three cases.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

Table 1 DESCRIPTIVE DATA FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS Comparison of the 8-month 1996 sample1 with FY 19922 Defendant Information

1996 (8 months) N = 548

Age • 13 years old • 14 years old • 15 years old

2 188 358

Gender • Male • Female Ethnicity • Black • Hispanic • White • Other Borough of arrest • Brooklyn • Manhattan • Queens • Staten Island • Bronx

•

No prior felony conviction

•

No open cases

<1% 34% 65%

11 <1% 556 37% 954 63% n = 1521

484 89% 61 11% n = 545

1375 89% 165 11% n = 1540

351 65% 153 28% 19 4% 19 4% n = 542

1009 451 55 37

65% 29% 4% 2%

591 364 293 18 286

38% 23% 19% 1% 18%

210 114 82 5 137

Criminal record (categories are not mutually exclusive) • First arrest

Affidavit Charge • 1st degree robbery • 2nd degree robbery • 2nd degree murder (including attempted murder) • All other JO charges Release status at Criminal Court arraignment • ROR • Bail set and made • Bail set and not made • Remand Bail amount set at Criminal Court araignment • Mean effective bail • Median effective bail

FY 1992 N = 1552

38% 21% 15% 1% 25%

374 74% n = 508 445 100% n = 445 375 84% n = 445

Not available 1437 99% n = 1451 1173 81% n = 1451

306 58% 140 26% 25 5% 59 11% n = 530

847 56% 383 26% 115 8% 155 10% n = 1500

200 37% 16 3% 312 58% 11 2% n = 539

795 52% 25 2% 665 43% 57 4% n = 1542

$8833 $3500

$6287 $1500 n=326

n = 685

The base number used in some percentages is less than the total number in the sample because cases with missing information were not included in the base. The base number for each cell is given if it is less than the sample N. Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

1 Includes Juvenile Offenders arrested from April 28, 1996 (the date that JO recommendations were implemented by CJA) through December 31, 1996.

Two juveniles arrested on April 27 were included because they were interviewed by CJA on April 28 and were processed using the new procedures. Only docketed cases were included in both the 1996 and the FY 1992 samples.

2 Winterfield, Laura A., Developing a Release-On-Recognizance System for Juveniles Arraigned in New York City Adult Courts. CJA, May 1996. Some unpublished data from the study are included here.

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However, fewer were released on recognizance in 1996 (37%) than in FY 1992 (52%), and more had bail conditions set in 1996 (61%), compared to FY 1992 (45%). Average bail amounts were set higher in 1996 than in FY 1992, and the median bail amount in 1996 was more than double the median in FY 1992. Nevertheless, the proportion of defendants who made bail was about the same (between 2% and 3% in each year). The box below shows that about 95 percent in each year did not make bail, taking as the base only those for whom bail was set.

1996 (8 months) Bail made Bail not made Total bail set

FY 1992

16

(5%)

25

(4%)

312

(95%)

665

(96%)

328 (100%) (61% of entire sample for whom data were available; N = 539)

690 (100%) (45% of entire sample for whom data were available; N = 1542)

We now turn to examine the distribution of JO release-recommendation categories during their first eight months of use. Following that, we present more detailed data on release status, and the relationship between release status, recommendation category, and charge severity.

Recommendation and Release Rates Estimates of the proportions expected to receive the various recommendation stamps were made during the development of the system. These estimates were based on 1,552 JOs arraigned during FY 1992. We are now in a position to know how close these estimates were to the actual number of JOs who received each recommendation category during the first eight months of implementation, from April 28, 1996, through December 31, 1996.

It was estimated that 70 percent of docketed JOs citywide would be recommended for release, with borough variations ranging from 62 percent in Manhattan to 77 percent in Queens.

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Table 2 shows that these estimates were close, but a little low. Citywide, about 75 percent of 1996 JO cases were recommended for release, ranging from a low of 67 percent in Manhattan to 84 percent in Queens. (In Staten Island 100 percent were recommended, but there were too few cases to make a meaningful comparison.)

In a small number of cases (22, or 4%), the CJA interviewer treated the defendant as a JO, but did not use the new procedure to calculate a recommendation category. Instead, these interview forms were stamped â&#x20AC;&#x153;Juvenile: For Information Only,â&#x20AC;? as they would have been prior to April 28. This was no doubt a reversion to old habits that will disappear as the interviewers become more familiar with the new system.

A few juveniles (17, or 3%) were treated by CJA interviewers as adults. There are several ways in which this could have happened: the defendant may have not have been identified by the NYPD as a JO; the defendant may have claimed during the interview to be 16 or older (although if identified by the NYPD as a JO, he or she should still have been treated by CJA as a JO); or the CJA interviewer may simply have erred.

Finally, some juveniles (21, or 4%) were missing a recommendation. A few were probably data entry errors, but most of the missing recommendations occurred because the defendant was not interviewed. This can happen because JOs are held in separate detention cells and may be missed by the CJA interviewer, especially during busy times.

Table 3 shows, in the top part, release status by borough, and in the lower part, the proportions released and detained at arraignment. Citywide, about 37 percent were released on recognizance (ROR'd). Most of the remainder had bail set, and 2 percent were remanded. The Bronx differed markedly from the other boroughs in that it was the only borough in which the majority (52%) were ROR'd.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

Table 2 CJA RECOMMENDATION FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS

BY BOROUGH 1996 (8 months)1 Recommendation Category Recommended (J5) Not recommended (J6) No recommendation (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) Juvenile: for information only (4E: old JO stamp, no recommendation) Processed as Adult

Brooklyn

Manhattan

Queens

165 (78.6%) 18 (8.6%) 8 (3.8%) 9 (4.3%)

76 (66.7%) 9 (7.9%) 6 (5.3%) 5 (4.4%)

69 (84.1%) 7 (8.5%) 2 (2.4%) 2 (2.4%)

0

9 1 (7.9%) (1.2%) Missing 10 9 1 recommendation (4.8%) (7.9%) (1.2%) Totals 210 114 82 (100%) (100%) (100%) Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

Staten Island 5 (100%) 0 0 0

0 0 5 (100%)

Bronx

Citywide

97 (70.8%) 20 (14.6%) 6 (4.4%) 6 (4.4%)

412 (75.2%) 54 (9.9%) 22 (4.0%) 22 (4.0%)

7 (5.1%) 1 (0.7%) 137 (100%)

17 (3.1%) 21 (3.8%) 548 (100%)

1 Includes Juvenile Offenders arrested from April 28, 1996 (the date that JO recommendations were implemented by CJA) through December 31, 1996. Two juveniles arrested on April 27 were included because they were interviewed by CJA on April 28 and were processed using the new procedures. Only docketed cases were included.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

Table 3 RELEASE STATUS AT CRIMINAL COURT ARRAIGNMENT FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS

BY BOROUGH 1996 (8 months)1 RELEASE STATUS AT ARRAIGNMENT ROR’D BAIL SET REMANDED TOTALS RELEASE OUTCOME AT ARRAIGNMENT RELEASED ROR’d Bail made DETAINED Bail not made Remanded TOTALS

Brooklyn

Manhattan

Queens

68 33.2% 133 64.9% 4 2.0% 205 100%

34 30.6% 75 67.6% 2 1.8% 111 100%

27 32.9% 54 65.9% 1 1.2% 82 100%

76 37.1% 68 33.2% 8 3.9% 129 62.9% 125 61.0% 4 2.0% 205 100%

36 32.4% 34 30.6% 2 1.8% 75 67.6% 73 65.8% 2 1.8% 111 100%

31 37.8% 27 32.9% 4 4.9% 51 62.2% 50 61.0% 1 1.2% 82 100%

Missing release status 4 0 0 Disposed at arraignment 1 3 0 Sample Total 210 114 82 Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

Staten Island 0 5 100% 0 5 100%

0 0 0 5 100% 5 100% 0 5 100% 0 0 5

Bronx

Citywide

71 52.2% 61 44.9% 4 2.9% 136 100%

200 37.1% 328 60.9% 11 2.0% 539 100%

73 53.7% 71 52.2% 2 1.5% 63 46.3% 59 43.4% 4 2.9% 136 100%

216 40.1% 200 37.1% 16 3.0% 323 59.9% 312 57.9% 11 2.0% 539 100%

1 0 137

5 4 548

1 Includes Juvenile Offenders arrested from April 28, 1996 (the date that JO recommendations were implemented by CJA) through December 31, 1996. Two juveniles arrested on April 27 were included because they were interviewed by CJA on April 28 and were processed using the new procedures. Only docketed cases were included.

- 20 -

Very few of those with bail set were able to make bail, so the proportion of JOs who were released at arraignment (40% citywide) is not much larger than the proportion ROR’d. It is clear that CJA recommended for release a much larger proportion of JO defendants than were actually released at arraignment.

Five cases, four of which were transferred to Family Court at arraignment, were missing the release status. An additional four defendants did not have a release status because their cases were disposed at arraignment; all four cases were dismissed.

Table 4 shows that the court did not follow CJA's recommendation for release in the majority of cases. Before presenting data on the extent of the disparity, however, we should point out that the CJA recommendation is based entirely on community-ties information, whereas judges are required by statute to take other factors into account.9 Risk of flight is the only legitimate reason for detaining a defendant, but in weighing that risk, judges must consider, for example, the likelihood of conviction. The prosecutor and defense attorney also play a role in the release decision. This should be borne in mind during the following discussion.

Regardless of recommendation, judges were most likely to set bail, which was usually not made. Of 405 who were recommended for release, only 163 (40%) were ROR'd. This should not be interpreted to mean that there was no relationship between recommendation and release decision: in spite of the low release rate for the recommended category, a juvenile who was recommended was almost twice as likely to be released as one who was not recommended.

9

Of the

CPL 510.30 states that the release decision must be based on “the kind and degree of control or restriction that is necessary to secure [the defendant’s] court attendance when required. In determining that matter, the court must, on the basis of available information, consider and take into account . . . (i) [the defendant’s] character, reputation, habits and mental condition; (ii) His employment and financial resources; and (iii) His family ties and the length of his residence if any in the community; and (iv) His criminal record if any; and (v) His record of previous adjudication as a juvenile delinquent. . .; and (vi) [Prior failures to appear]; and (vii) . . . the weight of the evidence against him . . .; and (viii) . . . the sentence which may be or has been imposed upon conviction.”

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

Table 4 RELEASE STATUS AT CRIMINAL COURT ARRAIGNMENT FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS

BY CJA RECOMMENDATION 1996 (8 months)1 Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance

Recommended (J5)

Recommendation Category Not recommended No (J6) recommendation (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) 13 6 24.1% 27.3% (7.1%) (3.3%) 0 0

Totals

163 182 40.2% 37.8% (89.6%) (100%) Bail made 15 15 3.7% 3.1% (100%) (100%) Bail not made 225 40 10 275 55.6% 74.1% 45.5% 57.2% (81.8%) (14.5%) (3.6%) (100%) Remanded 2 1 6 9 0.5% 1.9% 27.3% 1.9% (22.2%) (11.1%) (66.7%) (100%) Totals 405 54 22 481 100% 100% 100% 100% (84.2%) (11.2%) (4.6%) (100%) Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

67 cases without a JO recommendation stamp or without a release status were not included in this table.

Within each cell, percentages in the middle row are column percentages; percentages at the bottom (in parentheses and in italics) are row percentages.

Note that 84.2% of the 481 cases with valid recommendation and release data were recommended for release. This is a larger percentage than shown in Table 2 (75.2% recommended for release) because in Table 2 the percentage is given for the entire sample of 548 cases.

1 Includes Juvenile Offenders arrested from April 28, 1996 (the date that JO recommendations were implemented by CJA) through December 31, 1996. Two juveniles arrested on April 27 were included because they were interviewed by CJA on April 28 and were processed using the new procedures. Only docketed cases were included.

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54 who were not recommended for release, only 24 percent were RORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d. Nevertheless, the most probable outcome for both groups was to have bail set.

Judges were more likely to follow the recommendation when CJA did not recommend release. Of the 54 defendants not recommended for release, 74 percent had bail set (none of whom could make bail) and one (2%) was remanded. Thus, 76 percent of those who were not recommended for release were detained.

On the other hand, almost all of the defendants who were released had been recommended for release: 90 percent of those who were ROR'd had been recommended (see percentages in italics at the bottom of each cell), and only 7 percent had been not recommended (the other 3 percent being those who received no recommendation for policy reasons).

Simply put, the judges did not release very many of the JOs whom CJA recommended for release, but when they did release a JO, it was usually one who had been recommended.

Table 4A presents the same data separately for each borough. Only in the Bronx, where release rates were highest, did judges release a majority of defendants who were recommended for release (55% ROR'd). Otherwise, the patterns are generally the same in each borough.

Since the sentence that the defendant will face if convicted is one of the factors that judges must consider in making a release decision, it is appropriate to examine the possibility that the severity of the charge has an important independent effect. With the next few tables, we begin to explore the relationships between charge severity, recommendation, and the release decision.

Table 5 presents the distribution of felony-severity class of the top arrest charge by borough. Citywide, two-thirds of arraigned JOs were arrested on a Class-B felony, and most of the remaining third were arrested on Class-C felonies (see Appendix A for the specific charges included in each severity class). The charges in Queens tended to be a little more severe than in the other boroughs: only 22 percent of the top arrest charges were Class-C felonies, com-23-

New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

Table 4A RELEASE STATUS AT CRIMINAL COURT ARRAIGNMENT FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS

BY CJA RECOMMENDATION AND BOROUGH 1996 (8 months)1 BROOKLYN Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance

Recommended (J5) 61 37.9% (95.3%) 8 4.9% (100%) 92 57.1% (82.9%) 0

Recommendation Category Not recommended No (J6) recommendation (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) 2 1 11.1% 12.5% (3.1%) (1.6%) 0 0

Totals

64 34.2% (100%) Bail made 8 4.3% (100%) Bail not 15 4 111 made 83.3% 50.0% 59.4% (13.5%) (3.6%) (100%) Remanded 1 3 4 5.6% 37.5% 2.1% (25.0%) (75.0%) (100%) Totals 161 18 8 187 100% 100% 100% 100% (86.1%) (9.6%) (4.3%) (100%) 23 cases without a JO recommendation stamp or without a release status were not included in this table.

Within each cell, percentages in the middle row are column percentages; percentages at the bottom (in parentheses and in italics) are row percentages.

1 Includes Juvenile Offenders arrested from April 28, 1996 (the date that JO recommendations were implemented by CJA) through December 31, 1996. Two juveniles arrested on April 27 were included because they were interviewed by CJA on April 28 and were processed using the new procedures. Only docketed cases were included.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders Table 4-A (continued)

MANHATTAN Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance

Recommended (J5) 24 32.4% (92.3%) 2 2.7% (100%) 48 64.9% (81.4%) 0

Recommendation Category Not recommended No (J6) recommendation (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) 2 0 22.2% (7.7%) 0 0

Totals

26 29.2% (100%) Bail made 2 2.2% (100%) Bail not 7 4 59 made 77.8% 66.7% 66.3% (11.9%) (6.8%) (100%) Remanded 0 2 2 33.3% 2.2% (100%) (100%) Totals 74 9 6 89 100% 100% 100% 100% (83.1%) (10.1%) (6.8%) (100%) 25 cases without a JO recommendation stamp or without a release status were not included in this table.

QUEENS Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance

Recommended (J5) 25 36.2% (96.2%) 4 5.8% (100%) 40 58.0% (85.1%) 0

Recommendation Category Not recommended No (J6) recommendation (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) 1 0 14.3% (3.8%) 0 0

Totals

26 33.3% (100%) Bail made 4 5.1% (100%) Bail not 6 1 47 made 85.7% 50.0% 60.3% (12.8%) (2.1%) (100%) Remanded 0 1 1 50.0% 1.3% (100%) (100%) Totals 69 7 2 78 100% 100% 100% 100% (88.5% (9.0%) (2.6%) (100%) 4 cases without a JO recommendation stamp or without a release status were not included in this table.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders Table 4-A (continued)

STATEN ISLAND Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance Bail made Bail not made Remanded Totals

Recommended (J5) 0

0 5 100% (100%) 0 5 100% (100%)

Recommendation Category Not recommended No (J6) recommendation (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) 0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

Totals

0

0 5 100% (100%) 0 5 100% (100%)

BRONX Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance

Recommended (J5)

Recommendation Category Not recommended No (J6) recommendation (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) 8 5 40.0% 83.3% (12.1%) (7.6%) 0 0

Totals

53 66 55.2% 54.1% (80.3%) (100%) Bail made 1 1 1.0% 0.8% (100%) (100%) Bail not 40 12 1 53 made 41.7% 60.0% 16.7% 43.4% (75.5%) (22.6%) (1.9%) (100%) Remanded 2 0 0 2 2.1% 1.6% (100%) (100%) Totals 96 20 6 122 100% 100% 100% 100% (78.7%) (16.4%) (4.9%) (100%) 15 cases without a JO recommendation stamp or without a release status were not included in this table.

Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

Table 5 SEVERITY OF TOP ARREST CHARGE FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS

BY BOROUGH 1996 (8 months)1 Severity Class Class-A felony Class-B felony Class-C* felony Totals

Brooklyn

Manhattan

Queens

4 4 1 1.9% 3.6% 1.2% 145 70 63 69.7% 62.5% 76.8% 59 38 18 28.4% 33.9% 22.0% 208 112 82 100% 100% 100% Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

Five cases with non-JO charges were not included in this table.

Staten Island

Bronx

Citywide

0

0

3 60.0% 2 40.0% 5 100%

84 61.8% 52 38.2% 136 100%

9 1.7% 365 67.2% 169 31.1% 543 100%

* Assault-1째 was classified as a Class-C felony for this report. It was upgraded to a Class-B felony in November 1996, just a month before the end of the study period. Of 169 Class-C felonies citywide, 30 were Assault-1째.

1 Includes Juvenile Offenders arrested from April 28, 1996 (the date that JO recommendations were implemented by CJA) through December 31, 1996. Two juveniles arrested on April 27 were included because they were interviewed by CJA on April 28 and were processed using the new procedures. Only docketed cases were included.

- 27 -

pared with 28 to 40 percent in the other boroughs.9 The charge is not a factor in the release recommendation (except for murder charges), but there could be an association between charge and recommendation if juveniles arrested for the more serious crimes tend to have dropped out of school and to lack strong family relationships (resulting in lower expectations of someone coming to court). However, as Table 6 shows, no such relationship existed in our data. Defendants arrested on Class-A felonies were almost all given no recommendation because of the policy of not making a recommendation for defendants charged with murder. However, there is no difference between Class-B and Class-C felonies in terms of the percent who were recommended for release: about 76 percent for both groups.

On the other hand, Table 7 shows that there is a relationship between arrest-charge10 severity and release status: the more severe the charge, the smaller the likelihood of release. No defendant arrested on a Class-A felony was released; 30 percent of those arrested on a Class-B felony were released on recognizance (an additional 3% made bail); and 53 percent of those arrested on a Class-C felony were released on recognizance (again, an additional 3% made bail).

The last issue explored in this report is whether there might be a three-way relationship between recommendation category, the release decision at arraignment, and the severity of the top arrest charge. Although, as reported above, judges did not release the majority of juveniles who

9

Assault in the first degree was classified as a Class-C felony for this report. It was upgraded to a Class-B felony in November 1996, just a month before the end of the study period.

10

The severity of the affidavit charge, rather than the top arrest charge, is used in Tables 10 and 11 in this report, and will be used for most of the analyses in the forthcoming validation study. However, the results of any analysis using arrest charge should be roughly equivalent to the results using affidavit charge because there is usually very little change from top arrest charge to affidavit charge. That is true for this sample, as can be seen by comparing the numbers in Table 7 showing release status by arrest-charge severity to the numbers in the first column of Table 11 showing release status by affidavit-charge severity (although this may not be immediately apparent because the two tables are arranged differently). Affidavit-charge severity was used in Tables 10 and 11 in order to present data comparable to data available for previous years.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

Table 6 CJA RECOMMENDATION FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS

BY SEVERITY OF TOP ARREST CHARGE 1996 (8 months)1 Recommendation Category Recommended (J5) Not recommended (J6) No recommendation (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) Juvenile: for information only (4E) Adult recommendation Missing recommendation Totals

Class-A felony 0

Class-B felony 280 76.7% 37 10.1%

Class-C* felony 128 75.7% 17 10.1%

408 75.1% 54 9.9%

9 2.5%

4 2.4%

21 3.9%

14 3.8%

8 4.7%

22 4.1%

10 6 2.7% 3.6% 15 6 4.1% 3.6% 9 365 169 100% 100% 100% Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

Five cases with non-JO charges were not included in this table.

17 3.1% 21 3.9% 543 100%

0

8 88.9%

0

1 11.1% 0

Total

* Assault-1째 was classified as a Class-C felony for this report. It was upgraded to a Class-B felony in November 1996, just a month before the end of the study period.

Of 169 Class-C felonies citywide, 30 were Assault-1째.

1 Includes Juvenile Offenders arrested from April 28, 1996 (the date that JO recommendations were implemented by CJA) through December 31, 1996. Two juveniles arrested on April 27 were included because they were interviewed by CJA on April 28 and were processed using the new procedures. Only docketed cases were included.

- 29 -

New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

Table 7 RELEASE STATUS AT CRIMINAL COURT ARRAIGNMENT FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS

BY SEVERITY OF TOP ARREST CHARGE 1996 (8 months)1 Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance Bail made

Class-A felony 0

Class-B Class-C* felony felony 108 89 29.6% 53.3% 0 11 5 3.0% 3.0% Bail not made 3 237 71 33.3% 65.0% 41.4% Remanded 6 5 0 66.7% 1.4% Missing release 0 1 3 status 0.3% 1.8% Disposed at 0 3 1 arraignment 0.8% 0.6% Totals 9 365 169 100% 100% 100% Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

Five cases with non-JO charges were not included in this table.

Total 197 36.3% 16 2.9% 311 57.3% 11 2.0% 4 0.7% 4 0.7% 543 100%

* Assault-1째 was classified as a Class-C felony for this report. It was upgraded to a Class-B felony in November 1996, just a month before the end of the study period.

Of 169 Class-C felonies citywide, 30 were Assault-1째.

1 Includes Juvenile Offenders arrested from April 28, 1996 (the date that JO recommendations were implemented by CJA) through December 31, 1996. Two juveniles arrested on April 27 were included because they were interviewed by CJA on April 28 and were processed using the new procedures. Only docketed cases were included.

- 30 -

were recommended for release, it could be that there would be more agreement on the less serious cases. In other words, judges who were reluctant to go along with a “Recommended” stamp for juveniles charged with the most serious offenses might be more willing to release recommended defendants charged with less severe offenses.

Table 8 shows that among juveniles charged with a Class-C felony, judges did indeed release on recognizance the majority (56%) of those who were recommended. This is in contrast to only 33 percent ROR’d among the JOs with a positive recommendation who were charged with Class-B felonies.

However, for the less severe felonies, judges were also more willing to release JOs whom CJA had not recommended: 29 percent of the Class C-felony offenders who were not recommended were released on recognizance, compared to 22 percent of the Class B-felony offenders.

Another way to look at these results is to consider the row percentages in italics at the bottom of each cell. These figures show that within each severity class, the overwhelming majority of those who were detained at arraignment had been recommended for release by CJA. (81% of the Class-C offenders and 83% of the Class-B offenders who did not make bail had been recommended for release.) This suggests that for a large proportion of the detained JO population, the risk of failure to appear, were they released, may be low  as low as for those who actually were released. That suggestion follows from the rationale for the recommendation system itself, that a positive recommendation predicts a low likelihood of failure to appear. It also supports the comment made earlier that considerations other than community ties, upon which the recommendation system is based, are factors in the court’s decision.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

Table 8 RELEASE STATUS AT CRIMINAL COURT ARRAIGNMENT FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS BY CJA RECOMMENDATION AND SEVERITY OF TOP ARREST CHARGE (1996, 8 months)1 JUVENILES CHARGED WITH A CLASS-C FELONY ONLY Recommendation Category Recommended Not recommended No recommendation Totals (J5) (J6) (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) 71 5 4 80 56.3% 29.4% 100% 54.4% (88.8%) (6.3%) (5.0% (100%) Bail made 4 0 0 4 3.2% 2.7% (100%) (100%) Bail not made 51 12 0 63 40.5% 70.6% 42.9% (81.0%) (19.0%) (100%) Remanded 0 0 0 0 Totals 126 17 4 147 100% 100% 100% 100% (85.7%) (11.6%) (2.7%) (100%) Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

22 cases without a JO release recommendation or without a release status were not included in this table.

Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance

JUVENILES CHARGED WITH A CLASS-B FELONY ONLY Recommendation Category Recommended Not recommended No recommendation Totals (J5) (J6) (J7, J7A, J7B, J7C) 90 8 1 99 32.6% 21.6% 11.1% 30.7% (90.9%) (8.1%) (1.0%) (100%) Bail made 11 0 0 11 4.0% 3.4% (100%) (100%) Bail not made 173 28 8 209 62.7% 75.7% 88.9% 64.9% (82.8%) (13.4%) (3.8%) (100%) Remanded 2 1 0 3 0.7% 2.7% 0.9% (66.7%) (33.3%) (100%) Totals 276 37 9 322 100% 100% 100% 100% (85.7%) (11.5%) (2.8%) (100%) Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

43 cases without a JO release recommendation or without a release status were not included in this table.

Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance

Within each cell, percentages in the middle row are column percentages; percentages at the bottom (in parentheses and in italics) are row percentages.

1 Includes Juvenile Offenders arrested from April 28, 1996 (the date that JO recommendations were implemented by CJA) through December 31, 1996. Two juveniles arrested on April 27 were included because they were interviewed by CJA on April 28 and were processed using the new procedures. Only docketed cases were included.

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V. Concluding Remarks The success of the new JO release-recommendation system lies in its ability to predict accurately whether defendants will fail to appear for scheduled court dates. Ultimately, success also depends on acceptance of the new system by judges, and their willingness to consider releasing juvenile offenders who have been recommended by CJA. At this time, judges are clearly reluctant to use release on recognizance, especially for JOs charged with Class-A or Class-B felonies.

It was noted at the outset that more JOs were detained at arraignment in this sample of 1996 cases than were detained in the FY 1992 sample used to develop the recommendation system. In Table 9 we have compiled data for the intervening years as well, using unpublished CJA trends data, in order to compare release rates from 1992 through 1996, and to compare these rates to data for 1982 arrests.11 Table 9 shows that the percentage released on recognizance has actually gone through a full cycle since 1982, when the ROR rate was 38 percent  the same as FY 1996. In the early 1990s, however, it was much higher. In FY 1992 and FY 1993 the ROR rate was over 50 percent. In FY 1994 the rate dropped steeply, to about 40 percent, and it has stayed just under 40 percent since then.

To test the hypothesis that the decrease in ROR rates could be explained by a shift towards more severe charges, we examined the distribution of the severity of the affidavit charge for the same years. The results of that analysis are shown in Table 10. The hypothesis is supported in part: FY 1993 was the year with the largest proportion RORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d (55%), and that was also the year with the largest proportion of Class-C felony affidavit charges (36%). The following year, FY 1994, the proportion of Class-C felony charges dropped to 31 percent, and the ROR rate fell to

11

Metchik, Eric, Recommending Juvenile Offenders for Pretrial Release. CJA, December 1987.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

TABLE 9 TRENDS IN RELEASE STATUS AT CRIMINAL COURT ARRAIGNMENT FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS 1982 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1996

Release Status at 19961 FY 19962 FY 19952 Arraignment (8 months) Released on recognizance 200 37% 415 38% 437 39% Bail set 328 61% 625 58% 660 58% Bail made 16 3% 32 3% 29 3% Bail not made 312 58% 593 55% 631 56% Remanded 11 2% 45 4% 34 3% Totals 539 100% 1085 100% 1131 100% Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

FY 19942

FY 19932

FY 19923

539 40% 743 56% 38 3% 705 53% 55 4% 1337 100%

752 55% 582 42% 15 1% 567 41% 36 3% 1370 100%

795 52% 690 45% 25 2% 665 43% 57 4% 1542 100%

19824 (6 months)

184 272 1 271 27 483

38% 56% <1% 56% 6% 100%

1

Source: the current study. Data are for arrests April 28 through December 31, 1996, which corresponds to the the first half of FY 1997 plus two additional months (May and June). Thus, the data in this column overlap with the data in the next column for FY 1996 by two months. Cases disposed at arraignment and missing release status were deleted from the base.

2

Source: Unpublished CJA trends data. A Fiscal Year begins with July 1 of the previous year and ends on June 30, but these data were compiled from data for statistical months; consequently, the dates of the beginning and end of each year may deviate from the dates of a true Fiscal Year by a few days (although each year still contains 365 days). Cases disposed at arraignment and missing release status were deleted from the base.

3

Source: Winterfield, Laura A., Developing a Release-On-Recognizance System for Juveniles Arraigned in New York City Adult Courts. CJA, May 1996. Appendix B. Cases disposed at arraignment and missing release status were deleted from the base.

4

Source: Metchik, Eric, Recommending Juvenile Offenders for Pretrial Release. CJA, December 1987. Table 10.

Data are for arrests June 21 through December 31, 1982. Cases disposed at arraignment and missing release status were deleted from the base.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

TABLE 10 TRENDS IN AFFIDAVIT-CHARGE SEVERITY FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS 1982 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1996

Affidavit-Charge 19961 FY 19962 FY 19956 Severity (8 months) Class-A felony 7 1% 32 3% 29 3% Class-B felony 359 67% 708 66% 700 64% Class-C felony 172 32% 335 31% 372 34% Totals 538 100% 1075 100% 1101 100% Percentages may not sum to exactly 100% because of rounding.

FY 19946

FY 19936

FY 19923

48 4% 860 65% 407 31% 1315 100%

35 3% 813 61% 478 36% 1326 100%

51 3% 1011 66% 465 30% 1527 100%

19824 (6 months) 24 5% 336 67% 138 28% 498 100%

1

Source: the current study. Data are for arrests April 28 through December 31, 1996, which corresponds to the the first half of FY 1997 plus two additional months (May and June). Thus, the data in this column overlap with the data in the next column for FY 1996 by two months. Cases with a non-JO affidavit charge and missing affidavit charge were deleted from the base.

2

Source: Unpublished CJA trends data. A Fiscal Year begins with July 1 of the previous year and ends on June 30, but these data were compiled from data for statistical months; conseqently, the dates of the beginning and end of each year may deviate from the dates of a true Fiscal Year by a few days (although each year still contains 365 days). Cases with a non-JO affidavit charge and missing affidavit charge were deleted from the base.

3

Source: Unpublished data from Winterfield, Laura A., Developing a Release-On-Recognizance System for Juveniles Arraigned in New York City Adult Courts. CJA, May 1996. Cases with a non-JO affidavit charge and missing affidavit charge were deleted from the base.

4

Source: Metchik, Eric, Recommending Juvenile Offenders for Pretrial Release. CJA, December 1987. Table 6.

Data are for arrests June 21 through December 31, 1982. Data are for arrest charge, rather than affidavit charge, because the distribution of affidavit-charge severity was not reported. The data are roughly comparable to the other years in the table, however, because the sample includes arraigned cases only, and there is usually little change between the arrest and the affidavit charge. Cases with a non-JO arrest charge were deleted from the base.

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40 percent. Overall, however, the hypothesis is not supported. The decrease in the proportion of Class-C felonies from FY 1993 to FY 1994 is too small to have made more than a minor contribution to the large drop in ROR rates. Except for small fluctuations, the distribution of affidavit charge severity remained relatively constant during the years examined here. Moreover, in FY 1992, when the ROR rate was at one of its highest levels (52%), the proportion of Class-C felonies was about the same (30%) as in FY 1996, when the ROR rate was only 38 percent.

What Tables 9 and 10 do not reveal is whether all charge-severity classes were equally affected by the changes in ROR rates. The data needed to answer this question were not available for FY 1992 through 1996, nor for the 1982 data. However, we could explore this question using data from the current study compared to calendar year (CY) 1995.12 Table 11 shows that the ROR rate went down from 41 percent in CY 1995 to 37 percent in the last eight months of 1996.

This is a small decline, but the decline among Class-A and Class-B felonies (3 and 6 percentage points, respectively) was somewhat larger than among Class-C felonies (2 percentage points).

For the proportions with bail set, the difference is a little more pronounced: among Class-A and Class-B felonies the increase in bail set was by 4 and 8 percentage points, respectively, compared to an increase of only 2 percentage points for Class-C felonies. While it would be a mistake to make too much of only a few percentage points, these results do suggest that the juveniles charged with the more serious offenses bear the brunt of increased detention rates.

It is beyond the scope of this report to attempt any further analysis of why release rates have declined so much since the early 1990s. It does not appear to be because of increased charge severity. The JOs arraigned in FY 1992 appear to be similar to those arraigned in 1996, judging from the comparison of their profiles presented in Table 1. And a larger percentage of

12

Annual Report On the Adult Court Case Processing of Juvenile Offenders in New York City (January through December, 1995), CJA, July 1997.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

TABLE 11 RELEASE STATUS AT CRIMINAL COURT ARRAIGNMENT FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS

BY AFFIDAVIT-CHARGE SEVERITY (1996 and 1995) 1996 (8 months) 1 N = 531

CY 19952 N = 1229

194 37% (N=531) 0 0% (N=7) 105 30% (N=355) 89 53% (N=169)

504 41% (N=1229) 1 3% (N=29) 288 36% (N=807) 215 55% (N=393)

326 61% (N=531) 1 14% (N=7) 245 69% (N=355) 80 47% (N=169)

677 55% (N=1229) 3 10% (N=29) 496 61% (N=807) 178 45% (N=393)

Release Status at Arraignment Released on recognizance All charges Class-A felony Class-B felony Class-C felony Bail set All charges Class-A felony Class-B felony Class-C felony Remanded All charges Class-A felony Class-B felony Class-C felony

11

2% (N=531) 6 86% (N=7) 5 1% (N=355) 0 0% (N=169)

48

4% (N=1229) 25 86% (N=29) 23 3% (N=807) 0 0% (N=393)

1

Data are for arrests from April 28, 1996, through December 31, 1996. Cases with non-JO affidavit charges and cases with no release status (missing or disposed at arraignment) were deleted from the base.

2

Source: Annual Report On the Adult Court Case Processing of Juvenile Offenders in New York City (January through December, 1995), CJA, July 1997. Exhibit 2C and Table 2c. Staten Island was not included in citywide totals. Cases disposed at arraignment and missing release status were deleted from the base.

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JOs in the 1996 sample qualified for a “recommended” stamp (75%) than in the FY 1992 sample (70%). The proportion of JOs charged with first-degree robbery (a Class-B felony) was slightly higher in 1996, but the proportion charged with murder (a Class-A felony) was slightly lower.

The proportion charged with second-degree robbery (a Class-C felony) was virtually unchanged.

However, there may be differences that would be discovered by further research that would help to explain the lower ROR rate for 1996. We will pursue this inquiry in a future report.

Although the research done in the development of this release-recommendation system showed that verified school attendance and expecting someone at arraignment were good predictors of FTA for the sample of FY 1992 juvenile offenders, these findings now need to be validated using a sample of JOs who were actually given recommendation stamps using the new system. This is the next step. In the coming months, the 1996 data file used in preparing this report will be expanded to include arrests through the end of FY 1997 (June 30, 1997). Additional information from the CJA Interview Report will be integrated into the data file, along with Supreme Court appearances through the disposition of each case, including data on failure to appear.

This will enable us to analyze the factors that predict FTA for a current sample of JOs, and to assess whether the new release-recommendation system is the best one that could be devised.

If not, the recommendation criteria will be adjusted accordingly. If, as we expect, the forthcoming validation study shows that a JO who qualifies for a “recommended” stamp is indeed a very low risk for failure to appear, CJA will then conduct discussions with judges to assess how the information provided by our recommendation contributes to their decision making. Broader acceptance of the JO release-recommendation system by the courts may lead to the detention of fewer low-risk juvenile offenders in the future.

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New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

APPENDIX A JUVENILE OFFENSES

Offense Aggravated sexual abuse in the first degree Arson in the first degree Arson in the second degree Assault in the first degree Burglary in the first degree Burglary in the second degree Kidnapping in the first degree Attempted kidnapping in the first degree Manslaughter in the first degree Murder in the second degree Attempted murder in the second degree Rape in the first degree Robbery in the first degree Robbery in the second degree Sodomy in the first degree

Penal Law 130.70 150.20 150.15 120.10 (1) (2) 140.30 140.25 (1) 135.25 110/135.25 125.20 125.25 (1) (2) 125.25 (3)** 110/125.25 130.35 (1) (2) 160.15 160.10 (2) 130.50 (1) (2)

*Assault-1° was upgraded to a Class-B felony in November 1996. **But only where the underlying crime is also a JO offense.

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Felony Class B A B C* B C A B B A A B B B C B

Defendantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Age 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 13, 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15 14, 15

New York City Criminal Justice Agency Implementation of a Release-Recommendation System for Juvenile Offenders

APPENDIX B COMPARISON OF SENTENCING OPTIONS FOR YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS (YO), JUVENILE OFFENDERS (JO), AND ADULTS CHARGE Murder-2° (Class A-I Felony)

125.25

150.20 Arson-1° 135.25 Kidnap-1° (Class A-I Felonies) 130.35 Rape-1° 130.50 Sodomy-1° Agg. Sexual Abuse-1° 130.70 (Class B Violent Felony Offenses) 150.15 Arson-2° 140.30 Burglary-1° 110/135.25 Att. Kidnap-1° 125.20 Manslaughter-1° 110/125.25 Att. Murder-2° 160.15 Robbery-1° (Class B Violent Felony Offenses) 120.10 Assault-1°** 140.25 Burglary-2° 160.10 Robbery-2° (Class C Violent Felony Offenses)

YO JO ADULT YO JO ADULT YO JO ADULT

SENTENCING OPTIONS MINIMUM MAXIMUM n/a n/a 5-9 life 15-25 life n/a n/a 4-6 12-15 15-25 life n/a n/a 1/3 max.

3-10 1/2 max.

6-25

YO* JO ADULT

1 yr - 1/3 max.

1/3 max.

1/2 max.

3-4 3-10 6-25

YO* JO ADULT

1 yr - 1/3 max.

1/3 max.

1/2 max.

3-4 3-7 4 1/2-15

*This is the range for a YO if sentenced to an indeterminate term of incarceration, but a prison term is not mandatory for YOs (it is mandatory for adults and JOs convicted of the charges listed in this chart). A YO may instead be sentenced to a definate term, or to a nonincarcerative sentence, including unconditional discharge, conditional discharge (3 years), or probation (5 years). **Assault-1° was upgraded to a Class-B felony in November 1996.

Defendants may be eligible for Youthful Offender (YO) status if they are Juvenile Offenders, or if they are 16, 17, or 18 years of age. YO status is not granted to defendants convicted of any Class A-I or A-II felony (absent a mitigating factor), an armed felony, rape-1°, sodomy-1°, or aggravated sexual abuse-1°, nor to any defendant with a previous felony conviction, a previous YO adjudication for a felony, or a juvenile delinquent adjudication for a designated felony. A YO adjudication replaces the conviction, and the defendant’s record is sealed.

Source: 1996 Graybook, Criminal Law, Sentencing Outline (SO 83-88; SO 100-102)

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