The purpose of this workgroup is to update, innovate and improve upon procedural justice and recidivism outcomes for individuals from booking to reentry from incarceration.
Unnecessarily incarcerating defendants awaiting court that are not a safety or flight risk results in significant costs to individuals, families and communities. Research has shown a variety of negative impacts from pretrial detention, such as higher rates of conviction and harsher sentences than those released, who have the benefit of demonstrating their ability to behave responsibly in the community. Detained defendants, especially those that pose lower risk of pretrial failure, may become further destabilized and less capable of being healthy, contributing members of society. They can experience loss of housing and income, separation from children or other family members in need of care, untreated mental health and substance use conditions, and develop further needs that place them at elevated risk of future arrest.
By law, a judge must set bond for defendants within 24 hours of arrest (30 days for certain serious cases and repeat violent offenses). Each arrested person has a right to an individualized decision made by a judge about the terms of their release, as pretrial detention is only to be used when other reasonable safeguards cannot assure court appearance or protect the community from harm. Further, the South Carolina constitution strictly limits the cases in which bond can be denied.
As such, there has been a sustained focus on Centralized Bond Court (CBC) practices since the launch of the CJCC’s efforts. For example, several pretrial outcome studies were completed, public defenders and State representatives (e.g., law enforcement, victim advocates and/or Assistant Solicitors) were made more consistently available to provide representation in bond hearings, and professional pretrial analysts were instituted to provide the Court pretrial service reports (PSR) on a daily basis. Such steps have helped to limit inappropriate uses of jail in Charleston County, and highlighted the need for systemic changes.