Pretrial release performance of addict defendants: examination of court non-appearance and rearrest rates.

The relationship between addiction and pretrial performance has attracted increasing attention in the diversion and bail study literature. Many jurisdictions have imposed special restrictive bail conditions upon the bail agreements of addict defendants on the heretofore unproven assumption that appropriate remedial conditions of release (for example, supervised drug abuse treatment) will improve the pretrial release performance of addict defendants. To determine the validity of these assumptions, the pretrial release performance of three groups (addict defendants without treatment program, and non-addict, unsupervised felony defendants) was examined. The results indicate that, measured in terms of appearance at scheduled court proceedings, the unsupervised, untreated addict defendants are poorer bond risks than the non-addict felony defendants, but that the court appearance performance of the supervised, treated addicts was equivalent to the performance of the non-addicts. Rearrest data showed virtually no difference between the groups for non-drug offenses, although the addict groups displayed significantly higher overall rearrest rates.