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Whatcom work group reviews PSA validation, eyes redesign of release-conditions grid
Summary
Whatcom County’s pretrial work group reviewed a local validation of the Public Safety Assessment, heard that a Washington ethics advisory opinion limits pre‑court contextual intake, and discussed redesigning the county’s release conditions matrix to better match local data and resources.
Judge Jones opened the Pretrial Processes Work Group meeting by saying the group would review a recent validation of the county’s Public Safety Assessment (PSA) and consider how the results should change local practice. "We commissioned a validation study of the PSA... That was completed last year by Dr. Hamilton," the judge said, and the group had just received the results.
Mallory Hamilton, program director for pretrial services at Whatcom County Superior Court, summarized three recommendations from the validation: recalibrating the PSA for Washington populations, expanding assessment beyond criminal-history measures with a dynamic intake, and redesigning the local release conditions matrix (RCM) that maps PSA scores to supervision and conditions. "He gave us 3 focused recommendations," Hamilton said, and she recommended the RCM redesign as the immediately practical option because of legal and operational constraints.
Hamilton and others told the group that a Washington State judicial ethics advisory opinion (No. 18‑04) restricts court employees from collecting contextual, pre‑appearance…
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