In 2006, as part of post-Katrina recovery efforts, the New Orleans City Council invited the Vera Institute of Justice to review the city's criminal justice system. Among Vera’s findings: virtually every person arrested in New Orleans was detained for some period, including many people detained for minor, nonviolent charges who pose no public safety threat. Moreover, the city incarcerated people a
t three times the national average, disproportionately detaining African-Americans pretrial, and spent one-third of its budget on public safety. One of Vera's recommendations was development of a comprehensive pretrial services program to create a more fair and effective way to determine if arrested persons must be detained or if they can safely remain in the community while waiting to return to court. In 2007, leaders of city government and criminal justice agencies formed the Criminal Justice Leadership Alliance which pledged to a broad range of reforms. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance approved an 18-month $467,960 grant for development and implementation of a pretrial services system for New Orleans. In January 2011, Vera's New Orleans office began facilitating meetings of the Pretrial Services Working Group, comprised of representatives of the Mayor's office, the City Council Criminal Justice Committee, judges of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, the District Attorney's Office, Orleans Public Defenders, the New Orleans Police Department, the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office, and the Clerk of Criminal District Court. The group designed a pretrial services program based on the research and experience from other jurisdictions running successful pretrial systems but tailored to the specific criminal justice processes and infrastructure of New Orleans. One main focus of the working group was the development of a risk assessment instrument—the tool which weighs an individual's risk of re-arrest or failure to appear in court if released—to help judges make detention and release decisions. In December 2011 and January 2012, New Orleans Pretrial Services (NOPTS) staff began a "dry run" of the risk assessment evaluations in Criminal District Court to test their tools and procedures. The pretrial services team ran detailed criminal histories and conducted interviews with arrested persons to determine employment and community stability, and attended first appearances to receive feedback from the magistrate judge. The working group used its findings from the test phase to continue to tweak the risk assessment instrument and develop wider sources of criminal background information. The working group also moved ahead searching for the ideal location to have access to a wider group of persons awaiting first appearance. The Sheriff's Office created space inside the jail's booking intake center for pretrial services specialists to meet with individual defendants. NOPTS began its risk assessment interviews in the jail in April 2012. A report released by the National Institute of Corrections(NIC) in early 2014 recognized the positive community impact of NOPTS. NIC found that between July 2012 and May 2013, 95 percent of individuals released from pretrial detention appeared in court as ordered, and 96 percent of low-risk defendants were not charged with a new crime while on pretrial release. City Council member Susan Guidry said, “This report confirms that New Orleans Pretrial Services is a well-designed, cost-effective program that has the potential to be a complete game-changer with respect to reforming our local criminal justice system.”
The City of New Orleans funded NOPTS for 2013 and 2014, with a supervision program for defendants referred by judges funded through a three-year grant from Baptist Community Ministries.
