Judges in Spokane County will soon have an easier time deciding whether to send people to jail before trial. The city and county court systems are rolling out a new risk assessment tool designed to free up space in the aging jail by making sure people aren’t held there simply because they’re too poor to pay a low-cost bond.
The tool called Spokane Assessment for Evaluation of Risk, or SAFER, was developed by Washington State University criminal justice professor Zach Hamilton, who looked at 13,000 Spokane County cases to determine which factors were correlated with greater risk.
“One of the hardest jobs we do as judges is making that release decision,” said Superior Court Judge Maryann Moreno. Looking at a defendant’s criminal history to try to figure out if they’ll show up to court can be “sort of like a Ouija board,” she said. “Having a risk score from the SAFER tool “allows me to make that decision much more confidently.”