Requiring the office of criminal justice to post on the office’s website an annual report regarding bail and the criminal justice system.

A Local Law to amend New York city charter, in relation to renaming the office of the criminal justice coordinator as the office of criminal justice, and the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to requiring the office of criminal justice to post on the office’s website an annual report regarding bail and the criminal justice system.

This bill requires the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (“DoITT”) to report on a number of issues pertaining to the inmate population of the Department of Correction (“DOC”). The bill would require DoITT to report information on a quarterly basis regarding the number of inmates in DOC’s custody, based both on the average daily inmate population for the quarter and for the total number of inmate admissions that quarter. For those inmates detained pre-trial, the following information must be reported: the charges they are facing, how serious those charges are, how long these they have been detained, how much bail has been set on them, and their criminal record if any. For those inmates who were sentenced, DoITT must report the length of these inmates’ sentences. The bill also requires DoITT to report on the court system’s impact on the DOC inmate population. For both felony and misdemeanor cases, DoITT must report the number of cases in which bail was set and the number of cases in which the defendant failed to appear for a court date, both for cases in which the defendant posted bail and for cases in which the defendant was released. The bill also requires DoITT to report on the number of cases in which defendants were released under specified conditions such as supervised release programs, the number of cases in which forms of bail other than cash or bail bonds are imposed, and the number of defendants who post bail. Finally, the bill requires DoITT to report on the outcomes of cases in which defendants are incarcerated pre-trial, and to report certain key information differentiating between boroughs, and comparing that borough-specific data to borough-specific crime rates.