Judicial Services Report 2016, 225th Anniversary Edition

The Court Administration Office consists of five units. Each unit is supervised by an Assistant District Court Administrator with overall management conducted by the District Court Administrator. In alphabetical order, the units are: x Bail Administration & Pre-Trial Services x Criminal x Family/Civil x HR, Fiscal, & Purchasing x IT x Jury

District Court Administrator Mark Dalton

Bail Administration & Pre-Trial Services The Bail Administration unit has responsibility for 5 major functions within the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas: Pre-trial Release/DUI Repeat Offender Program, pro se Protection from Abuse Petitions, screening for free legal counsel applicants, facilitation of Act 172 with reference of the use of interpreters for all court proceedings, and full compliance of the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas Language Access Plan. Pursuant to the Lancaster County Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Bail Administrator of Lancaster County is designated as a Bail Agency. The duties of a Bail Agency include: investigating and making recommendations to the Court and Magiste- rial District Judges as to the bail risk and modifications of pre-trial criminal defendants, supervising pre-trial defendants re- leased on conditional pre-trial release, and enforcing non-monetary conditions of bail. In addition, the Bail Administration unit supervises defendants in the DUI Repeat Offender Program (DROP) as well pre-trial release defendants released on Electronic Monitoring. The purpose and goal of the pre-trial release program is to ensure public safety and the defendant’s appearance for all court proceedings. The Bail Administration unit is essential in reducing the population of the Lancaster County Prison with the use of daily investigations of all new prison commitments, interviews of potential candidates for pre-trial release, and recommendations of the supervision of the pre-trial release program. In 2015, the Bail Administration unit supervised 772 criminal pre-trial defendants in General Supervision, DUI Repeat Offender Program, and Electronic Monitoring status, saving a total of 96,558 days of jail time for the Lancaster County Prison. With the current cost of approximately $73.00 per day to house an inmate in the Lancaster County Prison, the Bail Administration unit saved county taxpayers a projected $7 million dollars in 2015. As an alternative to costly incarceration, Bail Administration was able to successfully supervise this pre-trial population, which could have otherwise been incarcerated.