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Pre-trial Safety Assessment program discussed in Great Falls

Posted at 5:43 PM, Jan 17, 2020
and last updated 2020-01-17 19:58:33-05

GREAT FALLS — The number of inmates in the Cascade County Detention Center continues to increase.

Over the past two years, the jail has exceeded its carrying capacity by an average of 110 inmates per day. 

So while the jail's official capacity is 365 inmates, the detention center currently holds 475. 

In an effort to reduce crowding, a team of cascade county officials including Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, County Attorney Josh Racki, and County Commissioners on Friday introduced the first pretrial program to ever exist in the county. 

The program will utilize a public safety assessment, which is a system used to determine a defendant's risk to the community if released before trial.

The score is calculated based on several other factors including whether their current or past offenses were violent, their age at the time of arrest, whether they have any felony or misdemeanor convictions, and whether they've failed to appear for pretrial in the past.

District judges will then use the PSA as a tool to determine whether or not to release a defendant or detain them wile they await trial.

Sheriff Slaughter said that while the county’s goal is to eliminate overcrowding, the pretrial program also needs to ensure the community stays safe: “Our biggest concern is public safety.”

He also explained that the PSA will only be applied to suspects and offenders from the time the program was enacted - that means attrition of inmates is the only way officials will be able to combat overcrowding of those charged before the program took effect.


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