Pretrial Unmasked:

Most people outside the system don’t know what pretrial is. Plain English: after an arrest, a judge decides what happens while the case is pending—release, conditions, or jail.

Pretrial is the function that checks key facts fast, recommends conditions that fit real risk and real supports, explains those conditions in plain language, and then tracks compliance so the person shows up and stays out of new trouble. Done well, low‑risk people aren’t jailed because they’re poor, and genuine risks don’t slip through because paperwork looks tidy.

Who it serves is simple.

• For defendants, pretrial is the difference between being punished before trial and being stabilized with a workable plan.
• For courts, it delivers fast, verified facts so decisions rest on evidence, not guesswork.
• For victims, it is the channel for no‑contact orders, safety planning, and real monitoring so conditions are more than paper.
• For the public, it reduces unnecessary detention, keeps truly risky people on closer watch, and puts resources where they matter.

How the parts fit together is straightforward when it’s done right.

Arrest happens; booking data arrives; a pretrial officer interviews the person and verifies the claims that actually move a judge—housing, who lives there, employment, treatment history, support, and supervision capacity.

Then, a short report goes to the judge with what was said, what was observed, what was checked, and a reasoned recommendation.

If the judge orders release with conditions, pretrial explains them to the defendant in plain language, confirms first check‑ins, connects the person to community partners (treatment, housing, job services), installs or arranges devices if ordered, and starts reminders and follow‑ups. Prosecutors and defense rely on the same verified facts to argue risk and stability. Providers report attendance and progress back to pretrial so the court sees a live picture, not yesterday’s hope.

A day in the life looks ordinary and relentless.

• Morning: docket triage, jail interviews, verification and collateral calls.

• Midday: judge‑ready notes that separate statements, observations, what was checked, and the conclusion with the basis.

• Afternoon: court appearances, device installs when ordered, first‑week check‑ins, and problem‑solving calls when a ride falls through or a clinic closes early.

• Evening: reminders, late verifications, status updates for the next day’s calendar; document violations with what was expected, what occurred, what was attempted to fix it, and whether a warning, a modification, or custody is warranted.

My path into that chair matters.

During my master’s program I completed a formal court practicum, then I was hired and moved across state lines—with full relocation paid by the county department—because of well‑documented forensic mental‑health work with jail and prison inmates.

The expectation was simple and in writing:

• bring that discipline to pretrial,
• audit the unit,
• stabilize the intake process,
• work the regular role as a pretrial officer for six months to learn the ropes
• make recommendations for improvements such as measurable outcome protocols,
• and then move into the promised role of pretrial manager.

After three months of learning the process, I began checking everyone’s files, including my own. Including myself, there were three line officers. We each carried well over 175 people each, with two supervisors and four judges in the daily mix. At that volume, process has to be real or the wheels come off quietly.

The audit pulled back the curtain. The officer favored by supervisors was doing the least verifiable work. She set appointments and skipped them. She came and went on her own schedule and the rest of us absorbed her interviews.

• Backlogs followed.
• Supports went unchecked.
• Conditions were explained late or not at all.
• Notes began to look complete without being complete.

That is where harm starts—inside paperwork that reads well and proves absolutely nothing.

While that backlog grew, I refused to let my files slip. I came in early, stayed late, and worked through lunch to keep verifications current and instructions clear. I was salary—no overtime, no bonuses—so the incentive was simple: the work needed doing. Meanwhile, the favored officer—and her close friend (the other officer)—took full lunches, arrived when they wanted, and left at 5:00 p.m. sharp. That’s how two realities can exist in one hallway: one that looks orderly on paper, and one held together by the person who refuses to cut corners.

At the time, I didn’t consider how favoritism would shape my future in this department. Ethically, there is no room for it, so it wasn’t on my mind. It shouldn’t have been on supervisors’ or judges’ minds either. I was wrong.

One case made the danger impossible to ignore. A person accused of a gang-related homicide was ordered to leave custody with an ankle monitor. It was never installed. For almost a year there was no documented follow-up, no outreach, no reliable record of whereabouts. He could have been committing new acts of violence and leaving victims in his wake. No one knew. This is not a clerical error. It defeats the purpose of supervision.

I documented dates and examples and took it up the chain as a manager-in-training should do. The exact response I received was, “you need to lower your standards.” I was stunned. The request was not to fix the misses, audit the cases, or retrain staff. It was to stop insisting on the verification and documentation the work requires by law. Plain language: I was told to stop double-checking facts and to stop writing notes that proved what happened. My work habits and clean output made their favorite—and their supervision—look bad. Telling me to lower standards prioritized the protection of their own pride and optics, not the public.

Judges trusted my files because I did the unglamorous parts: verified supports, tracked moving pieces, and wrote notes for courtrooms, not newsletters. Three of the four judges brought new defendants directly to my office, another gave me special interstate pretrial-related tasks because the judges, too, were told I would be the department manager. They were happy. Two judges told the department heads that if a task needed to be done right, it should go to me. The reaction was not relief. It made the supervisors angrier. Accuracy had become a political problem.

The favored officer—socially close to decision-makers—was promoted to manager. That’s when I resigned rather than attach my name to the entire lack of ethics.

Let me give you a couple more case specific examples:

(1) One Friday at 4:45 PM, a judge walked a thin folder to my desk and said, “I need this done right, and I need it tonight to prepare for court at 8:00 a.m. Monday.” I opened the intake, called the numbers, confirmed the employer, verified who actually lived at the address, and secured a treatment slot that would take the person first thing Monday morning. Every step went in with time stamps—what was said, who I spoke to, what I checked, the conclusion, and pretrial recommendations. At 7:43 p.m., the judge had clean, usable documentation in his email. On Monday, conditions were set that actually existed. The department heads didn’t thank me which is fine, I didn't want recognition. I wanted ethical transparency. Instead the supervisor asked why I “bypassed” them without permission to stay late. I hadn’t. The file had come through the front door by one of the judges they work for.

(2) Shortly after resigning, one of the defendants from my former caseload contacted me. He had reached out three times by email and twice by phone to his new officer and the central line. No one responded. He appeared in person twice and was told his officer was unavailable. His bondsman then warned him a warrant was coming because pretrial “had no record of him reporting for months.” Well, I had him on my caseload and he was one of the most predictable at communicating with me and reporting in person without fail. The defendant had proof of repeated outreach and asked me what to do. Because of whistleblowing to the judges upon leaving, I kept copies of my files. I looked back and documented his attempts and sent a letter to the court in plain terms: the non‑compliance was from the officer‑side—missed callbacks, missed logging, missed handoff—not the defendant‑side. I included dates, numbers dialed, and screenshots. The warrant was paused long enough to sort the file. That is what I call ghost compliance. It looks like accountability until you check the timestamps.

Favoritism is not an HR quirk in criminal justice; it is a safety risk. From patrol to pretrial, when leaders protect a favorite, they absorb the errors that favorite creates and punish anyone who documents them. In my unit, leadership preferred keeping their favorite officer—even after an ankle-monitor failure that put both the department and the public at risk—instead of correcting the behavior department‑wide.

I did not stop at internal reporting. I delivered the files and the audit packet to the state‑level pretrial authority charged with overseeing county programs. As far as I could tell, no action was taken. The message was plain: protect the brand, not the process.

One thing I planned to change was courtroom decorum. I was the only one of the three officers who dressed professionally for court. Casual wear—leggings, tank tops, flip-flops—became normal. The favored officer was often the sloppiest. I’m not critiquing anyone’s personal style; I am pointing to a professional standard. If you want to be taken seriously in a court of law, you dress accordingly. People say “you are what you eat.” In this setting, you are perceived by what you wear.

I remain in touch with former colleagues from other departments who witnessed it. We meet monthly for lunch. A judge who worked alongside my office sometimes joins us. From what I hear, not much has changed. Accountability has a way of arriving late, and I’m grateful my name will not be dragged through that mud when it does.

Although I have evidence for every claim here, my experience isn’t unique—that’s why I’m not naming the location. These are systemic ethical problems you can spot almost anywhere a Pretrial Department exists. You just have to look closely for the signs:

• Verification drift: accepting claims about housing, work, or treatment without confirming them, then building conditions on air.

• Ghost compliance: marking people compliant when staff missed appointments or failed outreach, later blaming the defendant.

• Documentation laundering: cleaning up notes after the fact to match a preferred outcome instead of the real sequence.

• Device theater: court‑ordered electronic monitoring never installed or poorly monitored while paperwork implies it was.

• Favoritism conflicts: assigning sensitive tasks to socially connected staff and shielding them from audit or consequences.

• Risk‑score cover: using scores as decoration to justify a decision already made, instead of as one input checked against facts.

• Retaliation chill: discouraging staff from reporting lapses by cutting duties, smearing credibility, or slow‑walking fixes.

• Instruction failures: conditions explained poorly or not at all, then violations recorded as if the person had been clearly told.

• Data silos: community providers not looped in or updated, causing missed treatment entries and wrongful violation reports.

• Boundary creep: mixing church or social ties with supervision decisions, creating both bias and the appearance of bias.

This experience is one reason I shifted my PhD focus to applied ethics. On paper, both justice and mental‑health systems present as ordered and humane. Behind the curtain, incentives and loyalties can bend routine work away from accuracy. That gap—what the public sees versus how the work is actually done—is where ethics either shows up or collapses.

Pretrial decisions are public‑safety decisions.

They deserve verification chains that are real, documentation written for evidence rather than applause, and oversight that treats protected disclosures as part of the job.

Sources That Don’t Suck:

American Bar Association

Pretrial Release National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies

Pretrial Justice Institute

National Institute of Justice

Pretrial Integrity and Court Appearance Guidance