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Improving the Accuracy and Fairness of Pretrial Release Decisions: A Multi-Site Study of Risk Assessments Implemented in Four Counties, Indiana, 2015-2018

Metadata Updated: November 14, 2025

This study was a multi-site, quasi-experimental investigation of risk assessment-informed pretrial release decisions relative to decisions made without risk assessments. The study objectives were to investigate whether use of pretrial risk assessments: 1) improved risk management decisions relative to practice as usual; 2) improved the fairness of pretrial release decisions for racial minorities relative to practice as usual; and 3) revealed judge-level variation in pretrial release decisions. Secondary, administrative data were gathered from four counties in Indiana. Apart from risk assessment information, all data represent public records: court, jail and prison. Variables gathered from the data sources fall into three main categories: defendant variables, pretrial release decisions, and pretrial misconduct outcomes. Examples of specific variables include: booking and release dates, bond amounts, number and type of charges, and demographic information (age, sex and race).

Access & Use Information

Restricted: This dataset can only be accessed or used under certain conditions. License: us-pd

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date November 14, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOJ JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date November 14, 2025
Publisher National Institute of Justice
Maintainer
Identifier 3018
Data First Published 2021-02-25T09:38:02
Language eng
Data Last Modified 2021-02-25T09:44:44
Rights These data are restricted due to the increased risk of violation of confidentiality of respondent and subject data.
Public Access Level restricted public
Bureau Code 011:21
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.justice.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id cccbe2b6-ee4a-44a8-be7b-b89d93a26ceb
Harvest Source Id 3290e90a-116f-42fc-86ac-e65521ef3b68
Harvest Source Title DOJ JSON
License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Program Code 011:060
Publisher Hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 7c6156092a7ff3a4a9db56698b0bfaeb7d0094d0341a4a0072c9d9bc67587aba
Source Schema Version 1.1

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