Many studies of pretrial rearrest, including validations of risk assessment instruments, lump multiple types and severities of crimes together. Using a dataset of over 15,000 felony defendants who were released pretrial over a four-year period in New Mexico, we measure rearrest rates for specific types and severity of crime, and compare these with the risk scores provided by the widely-used Public Safety Assessment (PSA) developed by Arnold Ventures. Our data classifies both the original charge and new charges, if any, by severity (1st through 4th degree felony, misdemeanor, and petty misdemeanor) and by type (violent, drug, property, public order, and DWI).We find that the rates of rearrest for serious crimes during pretrial release are lower than overall rearrest rates suggest. Across all PSA score categories, about 1/3 of rearrests are for misdemeanors or petty misdemeanors. About 2/3 of rearrests are for felonies, most of which are fourth degree. Rearrest for 1st or 2nd degree felonies is very rare—less than 0.1% and 1% respectively—even among defendants whose initial charge is severe. We argue that policymakers who decide how to translate risk scores into recommended conditions of release, and judges who consider PSA scores or other risk assessments as factors in release decisions, should be provided with this richer picture of pretrial crime. We also urge that future validation studies of the PSA be carried out at this level of specificity rather than simply reporting rates of NCA (New Criminal Activity) and NVCA (New Violent Criminal Activity) in each score category.

In New Mexico and many other jurisdictions, judges may detain defendants pretrial if the prosecutor proves, through clear and convincing evidence, that releasing them would pose a danger to the public. However, some policymakers argue that certain classes of defendants should have a "rebuttable presumption" of dangerousness, shifting the burden of proof to the defense. Using data on over 15,000 felony defendants who were released pretrial in a 4-year period in New Mexico, we measure how many of them would have been detained by various presumptions, and what fraction of these defendants in fact posed a danger in the sense that they were charged with a new crime during pretrial supervision. We consider presumptions based on the current charge, past convictions, past failures to appear, past violations of conditions of release, and combinations of these drawn from recent legislative proposals. We find that for all these criteria, at most 8% of the defendants they identify are charged pretrial with a new violent crime (felony or misdemeanor), and at most 5% are charged with a new violent felony. The false-positive rate, that is, the fraction of defendants these policies would detain who are not charged with any new crime pretrial, ranges from 71% to 90%. The broadest legislative proposals, such as detaining all defendants charged with a violent felony, are little more accurate than detaining a random sample of defendants released under the current system, and would jail 20 or more people to prevent a single violent felony. We also consider detention recommendations based on risk scores from the Arnold Public Safety Assessment (PSA). Among released defendants with the highest risk score and the "violence flag," 7% are charged with a new violent felony and 71% are false positives. We conclude that these criteria for rebuttable presumptions do not accurately target dangerous defendants: they cast wide nets and recommend detention for many pretrial defendants who do not pose a danger to the public.

The U.S. has the second-highest incarceration rate in the world and spends more than $80 billion annually to house inmates. The clinical research literature suggests that methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is an effective method to treat opioid use disorders (OUD) and that jails are a potentially valuable environment to implement MMT. Currently, jail-based MMT is rarely implemented in practice, due in part to resource limitations and other economic considerations. The primary goal of this study was to perform a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of jail-based MMT using data from a unique MMT continuation program located in a large urban jail in New Mexico. Recidivism data were collected for a three-year period both before and after incarceration, and quasi-control groups were constructed from both substance-using and general populations within the jail. Base models show that inmates enrolled in jail-based MMT exhibited significantly fewer days of incarceration due to recidivism (29.33) than a group of inmates with OUDs who did not receive MMT. Economic estimates indicate that it cost significantly less ($23.49) to reduce an incarcerated day using jail-based MMT than incarceration per se ($116.49). To mitigate potential sample selection bias, we used both propensity-score-matching and difference-in-differences estimators, which provided comparable estimates when using the OUD non-MMT comparison group. Difference-in-differences models find that, on average, MMT reduced recidivism by 24.80 days and it cost $27.78 to reduce an incarcerated day using jail-based MMT. Assuming a willingness to pay threshold of the break-even cost of reducing one incarcerated day, we estimate a 93.3% probability that this MMT program is cost-effective. Results were not as strong or consistent when using other comparison groups (e.g., alcohol-detoxified and general-population inmates). Overall, results suggest that it costs substantially less to provide jail-based MMT than incarceration alone. Jail administrators and policymakers should consider incorporating MMT in other jail systems and settings.

CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology is used in the manipulation of genome sequences and gene expression. Because of the ease and rapidity with which genes can be mutated using CRISPR/Cas9, we sought to determine if a single‐semester undergraduate class could be successfully taught, wherein students isolate mutants for specific genes using CRISPR/Cas9. Six students were each assigned a single Drosophila gene, for which no mutants currently exist. Each student designed and created plasmids to encode single guide RNAs that target their selected gene; injected the plasmids into Cas9 ‐expressing embryos, in order to delete the selected gene; carried out a three‐generation cross to test for germline transmission of a mutated allele and generate a stable stock of the mutant; and characterized the mutant alleles by PCR and sequencing. Three genes out of six were successfully mutated. Pre‐ and post‐ survey evaluations of the students in the class revealed that student attitudes towards their research competencies increased, although the changes were not statistically significant. We conclude that it is feasible to develop a laboratory genome editing class, to provide effective laboratory training to undergraduate students, and to generate mutant lines for use by the broader scientific community. © 2016 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 44:263–275, 2016.

Because it is not common in the U.S. for jails to allow inmates to continue opioid medications that have been started in the community, we aimed to assess whether inmates maintained on methadone showed different rates of recidivism, lengths of incarceration, and types of offenses than other incarcerated groups. We also analyzed rates of return to home clinics after release. In order to answer these questions this study used extant data from 960 adult inmates in a large metropolitan detention center who were in 1 of 4 groups: general population with no known substance use disorders, alcohol detoxification, methadone maintenance (MMT), and opioid detoxification. Recidivism was assessed for 1 year after release. Data were collected from medical screening forms and jail databases and included demographic variables, dates of admission and release, number of doses and total dosage of methadone if applicable, reason for incarceration, and the date of rebooking and nature of offense, if it occurred. There was a significant difference in time to rebooking, F (3956)=13.32, p=.00, with the MMT group taking longer to be rebooked (275.6 days) than the opioid (236.3 days) and alcohol detoxification groups (229.3 days), but not the general population group (286.2 days). Survival analysis indicated significantly better survival without rebooking in the MMT and general population groups than the alcohol and opioid detoxification groups. There also were differences in length of incarceration, F (3, 954)=9.02, p=.00, with the MMT group being incarcerated longer than other substance using groups; and in misdemeanor vs. felony rebooking offenses, χ2 [3]=31.29, p<.01, with the opioid detoxification group being more likely to have a felony rebooking than the general or alcohol groups. In a separate analysis, data from 137 MMT clients, who were not precisely the same clients who were involved in other analyses reported in this article, indicated that over 97% returned to their home methadone clinics after incarceration. In summary, inmates who had been allowed to be maintained on methadone started in the community displayed a significantly longer time to be rearrested than inmates undergoing opioid or alcohol detoxification, but not inmates without substance use disorders. When they were rebooked, they were as likely as the opioid detoxification group to be rearrested for felony offenses.