Nonprofit organizations and democratic accountability in implementing supervised pretrial release programs

This article explores some of the implications of the use of private organizations to deliver supervised pretrial release services in England and the United States. The impact of the use of private organizations depends both on the division of responsibility between the state agencies and the nonprofit organizations and on the policies of the particular nonprofit involved in a specific case. The most potentially problematic alliances occur when the private organization has responsibility for both provision and production of services, but some programs that utilize this division of labor are among the most innovative, helping to maintain a system that returns as many pretrial defendants to the community as can be accomplished without compromising safety. Case studies of programs developed by the Vera Institute in the United States and the Rainer Foundation in England are examined.