Degree Name

Master of Arts

Document Type

Thesis

Date Created

5-1-2021

Department

College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Criminology and Criminal Justice, CRJ Student Work

Abstract

With an overwhelming number of offenders in prison for a drug-related offense (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020), evidence-based practices are as important as ever to help properly determine incarceration. Prior literature has shown that pretrial release decisions impact the final outcome of the case and tools used for such a decision should be evaluated and scrutinized (Johnson et al., 2014; Oleson et al., 2014). It seems that although violent offenders pose more of a physical threat to the community than drug offenders, the pretrial risk assessment tools cater towards pushing drug offenders towards a higher risk score. Using data from the Colorado Pretrial Assessment Tool Revised (CPAT-R) the results concluded that with a sample size of 292 defendants, drug offenders have a higher average pretrial risk assessment score when compared to violent offenders.

Keywords

Pretrial; Risk Assessment Tool; Drug Offender; Violent Offender

Comments

Spring 2021 Graduate Dean's Citation for Outstanding Thesis, Dissertation, and Scholarly Project

Rights Statement

Copyright is held by the author.

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