FREEHOLD – The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office has compiled statistics for the first nine months of the 2017 calendar year relating to the Bail Reform and Speedy Trial Act that went into effect on January 1, 2017.
This new law represents one of the most dramatic changes to our criminal justice system in many years. Under the new law, New Jersey shifted from a system that relied principally on monetary bail, to a risk-based system that assesses a defendant’s risk of flight and dangerousness to the community. Additionally, defendants have a right to a speedy trial under the new law.
Under the new system through the end of September 2017, there have been 3,315 complaint warrants issued countywide on 2,383 defendants since January 1, 2017. There have also been 3,661 charges that were placed on summonses rather than complaint warrant since January 1, 2017.
The Office has filed for detention on 489 defendants and 225 defendants have been detained by the court. To date, 30 defendants were released on conditions with this Office’s consent after withdrawing our motions to detain. There were 198 defendants were released on pretrial conditions over the Office’s objection.
At this time, 55 defendants have had violations of conditions filed against them which could result in pretrial detention or increased pretrial release conditions at a later court date.
The next statistical release will be available in early January when we will offer a full year’s accounting of the new reform measures in Monmouth County.