Blue Ridge region, Virginia
The Setting
Blue Ridge Court Services provides pretrial and local probation services across seven localities in Virginia's Blue Ridge region: Augusta County, Staunton, Waynesboro, Highland County, Rockbridge County, Lexington, and Buena Vista. Augusta County is the largest jurisdiction served, with a 2020 Census population of 77,487. All other localities are substantially smaller, ranging from Staunton at 24,932 and Waynesboro at 22,196 to Highland County at 2,232, the least populous jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The program operates from two main offices, one in Staunton and one in Lexington, with a satellite office in Waynesboro. The program implemented the Public Safety Assessment (PSA) in 2024, piloting it first in the Staunton, Augusta, and Waynesboro service areas before extending it to additional localities. The program is staffed by a program manager, four officers dedicated to pretrial, and four officers in roles that include pretrial.
The Challenge
Before the PSA implementation, the program operated under a zero-tolerance drug screening model that was generating a predictable and counterproductive cycle. Individuals with substance use disorders would be placed on bond, drug screened, test positive, receive a violation letter, and be returned to jail, only to be released again and repeat the cycle. Violations were piling up, court dockets were clogged, and pretrial officers were spending significant time on the same cases rather than addressing the public safety and supervision needs that matter most.
The model was also undermining what pretrial is supposed to do. Clients who knew a positive drug test would trigger a violation stopped coming to appointments to avoid detection. When clients stopped coming in, the program lost its ability to monitor behavior, identify risks, and connect people to the services that reduce reoffending.
The Strategy
The program's PSA implementation required convening a stakeholder team that included judges, commonwealth attorneys, public defenders, clerks, police chiefs, magistrates, and jail staff. That process, built on years of work through the local criminal justice coordinating board, created the conditions for a harder conversation: whether zero-tolerance drug screening was actually serving public safety or undermining it.
The conversation had its roots in COVID. When courts suspended mandatory drug screening during the pandemic, the program observed something unexpected: clients became more willing to maintain contact, more likely to appear in court, and more responsive to supervision.
The drug screening protocol that emerged works as follows: every client with a drug screening condition on their bond is screened during the first four weeks of supervision. If they test negative, the pretrial officer uses professional discretion to determine whether and when to screen again for the remainder of the pretrial period. If something changes, including job loss, missed appointments, or signs of instability, the officer can use a drug screen to prompt a supportive conversation. The result is fewer violations, fewer unnecessary court appearances, and more clients who stay engaged long enough to receive help and public safety outcomes the program can point to.
“Our zero-tolerance drug screening policy was not preventing clients from failing to appear; rather, it may have been a contributing factor in certain instances.”
— Pretrial program manager, Blue Ridge Court Services
What Made It Work
The pre-existing criminal justice board was the enabling condition. Blue Ridge Court Services had been building and maintaining those stakeholder relationships for years before the PSA implementation created a formal moment to have the drug screening conversation.
The stakeholder mapping process that accompanied PSA implementation was decisive. Rather than framing the drug screening protocol as a benefit to pretrial, the program showed every stakeholder how the current system was costing them specifically. Clerks saw docket congestion. Police officers saw their time consumed by arrests for violations. Magistrates saw the same individuals cycling through. When every person in the room could see that the current model was making their own job harder, resistance to changing it became difficult to sustain.
Staff buy-in required almost no selling. Officers were relieved by the protocol. The administrative burden of writing violation letters and appearing in court for the same clients repeatedly had been exhausting and demoralizing. The protocol gave them professional authority over a decision they were best situated to make.
Considerations for Replication
The drug screening protocol cannot be introduced before the relationships that make it credible are established. Stakeholders have to trust that pretrial officers will exercise discretion responsibly before they will surrender the certainty of zero tolerance. That trust is built through years of showing up, following through, and operating transparently, not through a single presentation or policy proposal.
When seeking stakeholder buy-in for a significant practice change, show each audience how the current system affects them directly. The mapping process Blue Ridge Court Services used helped every stakeholder see where the change would touch their own work, demonstrating shared benefit rather than single-agency gain.
In the summary brief
Introduce new practices as time-limited pilots with defined outcomes, then expand based on the evidence.
The agency piloted the Public Safety Assessment in its Staunton, Augusta, and Waynesboro service areas in 2024 before extending it to the remainder of its jurisdiction. The recurring stakeholder sessions, the rollout required, including judges, Commonwealth’s attorneys, magistrates, clerks, law enforcement, and jail staff, became the forum where the agency proposed a second, harder change: replacing automatic zero-tolerance drug screening with a risk-based protocol. Every client is screened during the first four weeks of supervision; officers then apply professional judgment about further screening and retain the ability to screen at any point when signs of instability emerge. Introduced on its own, that change would have been difficult to bring to the same stakeholders; raised within the pilot's collaborative structure, it was approved, and the agency reports fewer technical violations and stronger court appearances as a result.
Also under Strategy 5
This project was supported by Grant No. 15PBJA-22-GK-03661-JAGT awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.