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Pretrial services: Contra Costa validates pretrial risk tool as caseloads rise after Prop 36
Summary
Probation presented a validation of the county's public safety assessment, found strong predictive performance with no detectable bias, and reported pretrial assessments nearly doubled year over year amid higher referrals since Proposition 36.
Contra Costa County probation officials told the Board of Supervisors on May 20 that the county-validated pretrial public safety assessment (PSA) performs well and shows no detectable racial or gender bias, even as the department is seeing a sharp increase in pretrial workload following voter-approved criminal justice changes.
The nut graf: A validation study completed in 2024 found the county’s PSA has strong predictive performance for failures to appear and new criminal activity, and departmental officials said January–April pretrial assessments rose from 130 in 2024 to 243 in 2025. Probation officials warned the board the workload will increase further as Proposition 36 cases begin to filter through the system and urged coordinated investment in treatment and services.
E. C. McCrashford, the county’s chief probation officer, said the department expanded pretrial services after state funding (SB 129) came available and has used the funds to staff and to contract for community supports. “We completed 243 assessments,” probation staff told the board, nearly doubling the 130 assessments completed in the January–April 2024 period.
Probation manager Bart Sloan summarized the validation project and its findings. The project “investigated predictive validity — the extent to which the PSA correctly measures what it's supposed to measure,” Sloan said. The county contracted RDA Consulting to validate the tool locally; Sloan reported that overall performance indicated most defendants “avoided new criminal activity” and that the study showed “no significant bias was detected.”
County leaders said the PSA uses static law‑enforcement-record factors to score risk for three outcomes: failure to appear, new criminal activity and new violent criminal activity. The study found the tool was “accurately predicting” those outcomes and the department posted the local validation as required by SB 36.
Supervisors also heard data on geography and demographics: the pretrial population includes people living across the county, with a notable share living outside county boundaries, and three major offense categories were property, violent, and drug-and-alcohol-related charges. Probation described special caseload programs under way, including a gender-responsive caseload with tailored supports and a transitional-age-youth caseload for 18–25-year-olds.
McCrashford and Sloan warned the board the department is already seeing increased referrals since Proposition 36 took effect and that long-term success in managing new caseload types will depend on investment in treatment infrastructure and staffing. The board voted to accept the pretrial services report, 5-0.
Ending: Supervisors asked for a follow-up, multi-department presentation that would include probation, the district attorney, the public defender and the sheriff to present a fuller picture of pretrial populations, custody status and racial/ethnic disparities. Probation recommended a fall follow-up to allow for more data collection after Prop 36's early impacts are clearer.
