DOC outlines pretrial services study, says it could reduce jail days and costs

Tom Earhart, chief parole and probation officer for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, briefed the Judiciary Interim Committee on an ongoing pretrial services study authorized by House Bill 1425. The study is collecting administrative data and conducting stakeholder interviews to evaluate outcomes including failure-to-appear, new offenses and jail-days saved when courts use pretrial supervision instead of cash bonds.

Earhart explained the study's design: researchers will use a treatment-group approach by comparing counties that provide full-time pretrial services (for example Burleigh-Morton County and Cass County) with counties that do not, enabling a quasi-experimental assessment of differences in outcomes. The study team (DOC program manager Corey Schlinger and Dr. Andrew Meyer, NDSU) will collect data through July, conduct stakeholder focus groups, and prepare analyses with a target report due to legislative management by Oct. 1, 2026.

Committee members asked for additional breakdowns (percent of pretrial cases that also have cash bond, county-level cost-per-day for incarceration). Earhart said the study will attempt to measure cost savings by estimating avoided jail days and noting that roughly 80% of individuals in county jails are pretrial on the day snapshot he shared. He estimated daily jail costs in the ballpark of $100—$120 per day, consistent with county-level variation, and agreed to include cash-bond incidence and more granular cost data in the study.

Lawmakers said the committee will use the report to consider whether to support expanded pretrial services statewide and to inform budget choices that determine staffing and rollout. Earhart said DOC will submit the final study to legislative management per statute.