Hudson, Wisconsin
The Setting
St. Croix County sits in western Wisconsin along the Minnesota border, with the county seat of Hudson located near the Twin Cities metro. As you move west across the county, towns grow smaller and further apart, and access to services narrows. The county has seen recent population growth following the opening of a new bridge across the river, with projections suggesting that growth will continue. The Justice Support Services department was established in 2021 as a civilian pretrial program designed to connect defendants to resources, support court appearances, and reduce the administrative failures that compound into missed hearings and open warrants. The program is staffed by a supervisor, three pretrial case managers, and a full-time substance screener, with a court navigator position recently approved for hire.
The Challenge
Launching a new civilian pretrial department required building stakeholder understanding of a service-oriented supervision model from the ground up. Judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and law enforcement each brought different assumptions about what pretrial supervision should accomplish and how noncompliance should be handled. Establishing a shared framework required sustained engagement, transparent data reporting, and a formal structure that gave all stakeholders a voice in how the program evolved. At the same time, the program needed to demonstrate early results to justify the investment in a new department.
The Strategy
The program established a formal pretrial workgroup immediately upon its creation. The group met weekly in its first phase, with a judge, the district attorney, the head of the public defender's office, and the justice support services director. The Wisconsin Pretrial Pilot Project framework served as the structure, with each element tailored to St. Croix County conditions before being brought to the table. Working through policy questions at weekly meetings created rapid momentum and gave all stakeholders direct input into foundational decisions.
As the program stabilized, workgroup meetings became less frequent. Eventually, pretrial was moved under the criminal justice subcommittee of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, a standing body with broader membership and institutional permanence. Pretrial services became a standing agenda item at CJCC meetings, where outcome data including appearance rates and arrest-free rates was presented publicly on a regular schedule.
The phrase "let's pilot it" became a standard operating approach. The first major test was a step-down drug testing policy: rather than holding compliant individuals to the same testing frequency for the life of their case, the program piloted a reduction in frequency for those who had demonstrated compliance. Outcomes were tracked and presented publicly. The policy is still in place years later and has expanded to include remote breath testing. The court navigator position followed the same path, beginning as a pilot at criminal intake before expanding.
The court navigator pilot revealed an unintended opportunity. At CJCC meetings, the child support administrator heard the navigator concept described and expressed strong interest. One of her staff members now covers criminal intake two to three days per week in the navigator role, and the model has been adapted for family court hearings. A position designed for pretrial became shared infrastructure across the courthouse.
“Don't be afraid to highlight your wins in public settings. It's really quite remarkable that we now have public defenders that are regularly in contact with the pretrial case managers.”
— Pretrial supervisor, St. Croix County
What Made It Work
Judge Waterman, the judicial champion who chaired the criminal justice subcommittee, was central to the program's growth. He brought information about policy changes to other judges when a formal all-judge meeting would have been hard to schedule. Having one champion who could move information laterally through the judicial system accelerated adoption in ways that no formal process could have replicated.
The relationship between pretrial and the public defender's office deepened steadily over time. Public defenders now contact pretrial case managers regularly to share updates on clients, a level of communication that reflects the trust the program has built through consistent, service-oriented practice. Regular public defender engagement is one of the clearest indicators of how the program's identity has taken hold across the courthouse.
Presenting wins publicly at CJCC meetings, rather than distributing internal reports, gave the program visibility and credibility with a broader audience. Stakeholders who were not directly involved in weekly operations could see outcomes and ask questions in a structured setting. That visibility reinforced investment in the program's continued development.
Considerations for Replication
New pretrial programs benefit from a formal workgroup structure in the early months, when foundational policy questions require stakeholder input and buy-in. Weekly meetings with a defined framework and tailored agenda are more productive than occasional check-ins. As the program matures, the workgroup can evolve into a standing subcommittee of a broader coordinating council, which provides institutional durability beyond any individual's tenure.
Piloting new practices with defined timelines and measurable outcomes is a lower-resistance approach than proposing permanent policy changes. Stakeholders find it easier to agree to a pilot than to a permanent change. If the data is good, permanence follows naturally.
Cross-agency collaboration is easier when stakeholders observe program outcomes in shared public settings. Presenting at a CJCC meeting reaches a broader audience than internal reporting and creates opportunities for partners who might not have thought to engage with pretrial services to identify common ground.
In the summary brief
Present data in terms that judges, sheriffs, and county leaders need in order to make decisions.
The pretrial program reports its outcome metrics each quarter at Criminal Justice Coordinating Council meetings attended by prosecutors and law enforcement leadership, including court appearance rate for supervised defendants, arrest-free rates, and pilot results. Public presentation of these results became a tool for strengthening operations across the system, giving the program a visibility it could not create through internal reports alone.
Also under Strategy 4
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.