University Study Finds Colorado Pretrial Risk Assessment Tool is Biased Against African-American Defendants We’ve been hard at work the last couple of years warning state legislators and the Colorado Commission on Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) to stop advocating for statewide pretrial risk assessments and pretrial services because the Colorado Pretrial RiskRead More →
A new study bolsters claims that a widely used pretrial risk assessment exacerbates racial disparities in Colorado’s jails (excerpt from Colorado Newsline Aug 14 2020) On Oct. 8, 2018, Samuel Bouknight was arrested on Colfax Avenue and booked into the Denver city jail for driving under the influence of alcohol.Read More →
Colorado Legislation that Will Increase Mass Incarceration Advances; Governor’s Public Safety Director Leading the Effort The Governor’s Public Safety Director Stan Hilkey is pushing policies that will increase mass incarceration in Colorado with Senate Bill 161 (SB-161), a bill modeled after the so-called success in Mesa County. The bill wasRead More →
Where Is Colorado Public Safety Director Stan Hilkey On Pretrial Risk Assessments Now? Known supporter of the Pretrial Justice Institute (“PJI”) and their policies of pretrial risk assessments and supervision of pretrial defendants is none other than Colorado Department of Public Safety Director Stan Hilkey. Hilkey has written op-eds onRead More →
NEW: Landmark Report on Criminal Risk Algorithms Demonstrates Why CO House Bill 1226 is Fatally Flawed On Friday, a landmark research report was issued by the Partnership on AI (Artificial Intelligence) on risk assessments in criminal justice according to an article on Venturebeat.com entitled Algorithms aren’t ready to automate pretrial bail hearings. The PartnershipRead More →
Colorado Legislature Poised to Transfer the Power to Regulate Local Bail Policy to The State Court Administrator, Including Ordering Counties to Spend Budget Dollars on Pretrial Services Programs There’s been a lot of conversation about the so-called national “end cash bail” movement. In fact, the end cash bail movement startedRead More →
Colorado House Bill 19-1226 will create statewide pretrial services and empower the judicial branch to implement pretrial risk assessment algorithms statewide. Incidentally, it won’t be cheap to do that. On March 8, 2019, however, at the Kansas Judicial Center in Topeka, Kansas, on the topic of bail reform the ACLURead More →
Oppose House Bill 1226: Time To Tell The CCJJ To Go Back To The Drawing Board For several years the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) has been spending an inordinate amount of time in order to develop House Bill 1226 and their bail reform plan they planRead More →
Backers want to save taxpayer money and keep people from “languishing” behind bars (excerpt from The Colorado Independent – April 4 2019) It’s probably not often that the bail industry, Charles Koch and progressive criminal justice reformers agree. But all three are backing a bill that would require Colorado courtsRead More →
Colorado’s Pretrial Risk Assessment Tool Violates The Americans With Disabilities Act and the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses Of The Fourteenth Amendment As the Colorado legislature, at the urging of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCCJ), continues their push for the statewide use of pretrial riskRead More →
