RESOURCES
Rural Pretrial Case Studies
Practitioners and administrators at 18 local, regional, and statewide pretrial programs describe the strategies they use to strengthen operations, improve coordination with law enforcement and the courts, and promote public safety in rural communities.
Summary Brief
Rural Pretrial Strategies to Strengthen Operations
Eight strategies from the field to promote public safety and strengthen coordination between pretrial programs, law enforcement, and the courts. In interviews, rural pretrial agencies described a consistent set of operational challenges that differ in kind, not just in scale, from those facing urban systems. The brief pairs each challenge with a responsive strategy and illustrates it with examples from the participating programs.
from the summary brief
Eight strategies from the field
Eight strategies rural programs use to meet challenges that urban systems do not face in the same way. Select a program to read its case study.
Strategies 1 to 5
Building the system
Structures, relationships, and evidence that hold a rural pretrial program in place when people and priorities change.
Establish formal governance structures
In small communities, coordination often rests on a few people and unravels when a judge retires or a director leaves. Standing policy teams and written agreements keep it in place.
Educate stakeholders on pretrial functions
Rural partners may know pretrial staff well without knowing what pretrial services do. Programs educate each stakeholder group before asking for operational commitments.
Explore regional or centralized service models
Many rural counties book too few people to justify a dedicated pretrial officer. Regional hubs and state-level units provide the assessment and coverage a single county cannot sustain.
Present data in decision-ready terms
Rural program data often stops at the required report. Programs translate it into the measures judges, sheriffs, and county leaders use to make decisions.
Pilot first, evaluate the data, and, if appropriate, expand
With a small stakeholder pool, one failed initiative can set trust back for years. Programs test new practices as time-limited pilots and expand on the results.
Strategies 6 to 8
Serving defendants
Practices that reach defendants across rural distances and service gaps, from booking to the close of the case.
Refocus supervision on public safety
Blanket compliance tasks consume scarce rural staff time without improving court appearance or public safety. Programs refocus supervision on the conduct that affects both.
Build behavioral health pathways
Treatment in rural communities can mean one provider, a months-long waitlist, or an hour of travel. Programs connect defendants to services at the pretrial stage through embedded clinicians, enrollment at the bond hearing, and peer navigation.
Layer low-cost access solutions
Distance, transportation, and limited connectivity drive missed court dates in rural counties. Programs layer low-cost fixes such as taxi contracts, court kiosks, and check-ins scheduled on court days.
Case studies
Browse by Strategy
Centralized Public Safety Assessment Processing
In Montana, the Office of the Court Administrator centralized the PSA function at the state level to carry the assessment burden for rural counties, providing more consistent coverage and more hours of processing capacity than any single county position could sustain. Since 2018, the unit has completed more than 40,000 assessments, freeing local staff to focus on case management and monitoring.
Centralized Pretrial Support Units for Rural Courts
In New Mexico, the Administrative Office of the Courts built a statewide pretrial infrastructure from scratch in six years, reaching 30 of 33 counties to date by centralizing several functions that benefit small rural programs and rolling out jurisdiction by jurisdiction to ensure that systems did not go live before the foundation was ready.
Regional Remote Risk Assessment at Booking
In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a regional community corrections program made pretrial services financially viable for counties too small to sustain a full-time position by building a remote risk assessment model using a shared jail management system, a 24/7 contracted partner, and a software integration that eliminated nearly all burden on booking staff.
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.