During the pretrial phase, decisions are made quickly and often without a lot of information. The PSA provides judges with research-based information that they weigh, along with other information, to make more informed pretrial decisions. These decisions include whether a person can be successfully released pretrial and, if so, under what conditions.
When implemented responsibly and as part of comprehensive, systemic pretrial improvement, the PSA can help advance more fair and effective pretrial justice.
Nationally validated. To create the PSA, researchers used one of the largest, most diverse set of pretrial records ever assembled—approximately 750,000 cases from roughly 300 jurisdictions nationwide. Then, to validate the PSA, researchers used a dataset of more than 500,000 different cases from multiple jurisdictions.
The number of cases used to create the PSA.
Predictive factors. The PSA uses nine factors—narrowed down from hundreds—that most effectively predict the likelihood of successful pretrial outcomes. These factors relate only to a person’s age and criminal history. The PSA does not rely on a personal interview and does not consider a person’s community stability, neighborhood, or marital status.
Transparent. The factors and method used to calculate PSA scores are available and accessible to the public. Jurisdictions should make individual PSA scores available to the person charged, defense counsel, and the prosecution.
Free. The PSA is available at no cost to any jurisdiction that chooses to implement it.
Evaluation. Independent researchers rigorously evaluate the PSA on an ongoing basis. Independent researchers are validating the PSA in jurisdictions nationwide to maximize its accuracy and minimize its impact on racial disparities.
Results. Research demonstrates that the PSA is predictive across different jurisdictions. All studies to date show the PSA does not exacerbate racial disparities.
In 2011, Arnold Ventures (AV) (formerly the Laura and John Arnold Foundation) began a series of listening sessions with criminal justice system stakeholders to understand systemic challenges, get a sense of particularly urgent and high-impact problems, and start to think about how they might support improvements. Many of these conversations focused on the need for stronger pretrial justice and, in particular, the benefits of pretrial assessment in helping safely lower pretrial jail populations.
AV began working with a small group of pretrial scholars to further understand this field. They learned that only a fraction of the communities around the country used pretrial assessments, in large part due to their expense and/or the absence of an assessment that could be conducted without an interview. Given the limited resources available in many communities, the scholars set out to determine if they could spare jurisdictions these expenses while simultaneously improving pretrial justice outcomes.
These efforts led to the development of the PSA. The PSA was piloted in partnership with select jurisdictions in 2013 and, after 5 years of testing and research, was released publicly in 2018. Today, in recognition that pretrial assessment is just one tool among a variety of strategies that can lead to improved outcomes, AV supports broad and comprehensive pretrial change efforts through APPR.
Learn more about Arnold Ventures’ commitment to improving pretrial justice.