Hundreds of court officials and law enforcement shared best practices at a summit in Indianapolis Friday.
Much of the conversation focused on Criminal Rule 26, which becomes effective statewide on January 1 st, 2020.
CR 26 is intended to keep low risk defendants out of jail while keeping the public safe.
The measure implements a new pretrial assessment tool called IRAS, the Indiana Risk Assessment System.
IRAS helps authorities determine whether an arrestee is flight risk or a threat to themselves or others.
11 counties including Monroe, Bartholomew, Allen, Hamilton, Hendricks, Jefferson, Porter, St. Joseph, Starke, and Tipton implemented CR 26 a few years ago on a trial basis.
“We are gathering lots of statistics and lots of data about who is in the jail, who is arrested, how long they are there, so we and the system and the jail can look at those things,” Monroe Circuit Court Judge MaryEllen Diekhoff says.
Monroe County Jail officials say incarceration rates have not dropped or increased significantly since the county began implementing procedures from Criminal Code 26.
