| Colorado is attempting to move from primarily a money-based bail system to more of an individualized, risk-based bail system. The Jefferson County Bail Project and the Pretrial Justice Institute seeks to reduce or eliminate this disparity by assessing all defendants for their potential threat to public safety and their likelihood of appearing for court. The current study used the selected variables to extend the theories of social bond and critical criminology. The study was quantitative and used secondary data received from the Pretrial Justice Institute. The sample size consisted of 1,970 defendants in ten of Colorado's counties. The secondary data was run in SPSS to determine relationships. Frequencies, crosstabs, chi squares, and one way ANOVAs were run using independent variables race, gender, age, marital status, dependents, and employment status and the dependent variables include the recidivism rate, offense charge, type of bond, and failure to appear rate. The study found that there is statistical significance in the dependent's variables relating to the independent variables. The findings from the pretrial risk assessment showed that single, young white males were more likely to continue their criminal behavior. |
