La Grande, Oregon
The Setting
Union County is a rural county of approximately 26,000 people in eastern Oregon, served by a double judicial district that also covers neighboring Wallowa County (population 7,208). Oregon's oldest pretrial program operates here, established in 1979 and housed within the court since 1987. The program employs two release officers covering both counties and manages a caseload of approximately 200 individuals in Union County and 70 in Wallowa. Following Oregon's Senate Bill 48 in 2021, which expanded pretrial services statewide, Union County's program served as a mentor and shadow site for newly established programs across the state.
The program operates from a service orientation: genuine care for people coming through the system, clear boundaries about what the role can and cannot do, and a hiring philosophy that looks for practitioners who sit between law enforcement and social work backgrounds.
The Approach
Pretrial staff identified a specific population falling through the cracks: individuals cited and released by law enforcement who were never placed on a formal release agreement and had no contact with pretrial services. When their cases came to court, many did not appear, generating warrants that required officer time, prosecutor resources, and court administration. The problem had no obvious solution within the pretrial program's existing resources.
The police chief, the sheriff, and the Oregon State Police lieutenant were brought together in a single meeting. The ask was straightforward: when issuing a citation, hand the individual a business card. The card identified pretrial services, explained that the office could help with attorney information and court dates, and stated clearly that failure to contact the office could result in a warrant. Law enforcement heard the pitch as a practical time-saver: a card now prevents an arrest report later.
When individuals called in after receiving a card, staff entered them into the system, obtained a phone number, and enrolled them in automated court date reminders. Within one year, failure-to-appear rates dropped 57 percent.
“If this reduces a warrant later and an arrest later and a report later, you're saving us time by handing out a business card initially.”
— Law enforcement partner, Union County
The Lesson
The most effective access intervention in this case cost almost nothing and required one meeting. Its success depended on framing the ask in terms of what law enforcement gains, not what pretrial needs. Programs facing similar gaps in their cited-and-released population can replicate this approach with minimal resources. The primary requirement is a relationship with law enforcement that allows for an honest conversation about shared problems.
Sustaining the intervention requires periodic reinforcement. As law enforcement staff turn over, the practice needs to be reintroduced. The program returns to each agency periodically to ask how the card distribution is going and remind new officers of the rationale. The intervention works, and maintaining it requires ongoing relationship management, not a one-time meeting.
The broader lesson from Union County is that access problems are rarely solved by a single large investment. The program layers multiple approaches: intake contact for everyone regardless of supervision status, automated reminders, warm handoffs to community mental health, and the citation card for individuals outside the formal pretrial system. No single element is sufficient. The combination multiplies impact.
In the summary brief
Build layered, low-cost solutions to the transportation, distance, and technology barriers that drive failures to appear.
Individuals cited and released by law enforcement were generating failure-to-appear warrants because pretrial staff had no way to contact them. After stakeholder engagement, the police chief, sheriff, and Oregon State Police agreed to hand every cited individual a pretrial services card at the point of citation. The card prompts the individual to contact pretrial services, which can then collect current contact information, send court date reminders, and address barriers before the first hearing. Failure-to-appear rates dropped 57 percent within one year.
Also under Strategy 8
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.