Bill Text: HI SCR201 | 2023 | Regular Session | Introduced

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Bill Title: Requesting The Criminal Justice Research Institute, In Collaboration With The Judiciary And Department Of Public Safety, To Report On The Outcomes Of Individuals Released On Bail And Other Forms Of Pretrial Release.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 5-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2023-03-15 - Referred to JDC/PSM. [SCR201 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2023-SCR201-Introduced.html

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THE SENATE	S.C.R. NO.	201
THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2023
STATE OF HAWAII

SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

 

requesting the Criminal Justice Research Institute, in collaboration with the judiciary and department of Public Safety, to report on the outcomes of individuals released on bail and other forms of pretrial release.

 

 

     WHEREAS, several jurisdictions, including Hawai‘i, have explored abolishing the use of monetary bail as a condition of pretrial release, an effort commonly known as bail reform; and

 

     WHEREAS, when deliberating whether to enact bail reform measures, consideration of statistical information is critical to the discussion, such as the percentage of individuals released on bail who while in the community pending trial were subsequently arrested for committing new crimes, failed to appear at a required court appearance, or experienced other adverse outcomes, and how these adverse outcomes compare to individuals released on other grounds, such as supervised release and release on recognizance; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation's January 2023 report entitled Is Bail Reform Causing an Increase in Crime? assessed bail reform in eleven jurisdictions, which did not include Hawai‘i, for the effect, if any, of bail reform on crime and found that "[v]iolent crime trends after reforms present no clear or obvious pattern in these jurisdictions...neither violent nor nonviolent crimes or charges increased markedly immediately after jurisdictions implemented bail reform."; and

 

     WHEREAS, Hawai‘i's current bail system continues to use monetary bail as a condition of pretrial release; however, data on the outcomes of individuals released after meeting bail have not been compiled or publicly reported; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Criminal Justice Research Institute was established by Act 179, Session Laws of Hawaii 2019, within the Office of the Chief Justice to assess the administrative and technological feasibility of collecting, aggregating, and reporting on criminal pretrial data for purposes of establishing a centralized statewide criminal pretrial justice data reporting and collection system; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Criminal Justice Research Institute has, as part of its progress towards establishing a pretrial database, identified statewide pretrial data sources from the Hawaii State Judiciary that would reveal the outcomes of individuals released into the community pending trial; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Thirty-second Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2023, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Criminal Justice Research Institute, in collaboration with the Judiciary and Department of Public Safety, is requested to compile and report data on the outcomes of individuals released into the community pending trial, to include the numbers and percentages of individuals who met bail; were on supervised release; or were released on recognizance and who, while pending trial, subsequently were arrested for committing new crimes, failed to appear at a required court appearance, or other adverse outcomes; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Criminal Justice Research Institute is requested to submit a report on the pretrial data to the Legislature by December 1, 2023, and it is requested that the report be made publicly available and posted on the Criminal Justice Research Institute's website; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Chief Justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court, Director of Public Safety, Director of the Criminal Justice Research Institute, Administrator of the Criminal Justice Data Center, and Oversight Coordinator of the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission.

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

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Report Title: 

Judiciary; Criminal Justice Research Institute; Bail Reform; Report