Two-year study confirms screening low-level cases improves access to justice without compromising safety
CHARLESTON, SC – Today, Justice Innovation Lab released updated results from the first randomized controlled trial in the United States to study how prosecutor office structure affects case outcomes. The expanded findings, drawn from 24 months of screening and 36 months of total data collection in partnership with the Ninth Circuit Solicitor's Office, confirm and deepen last year's initial results. Screening low-level cases for legal sufficiency speeds up justice, reduces unnecessary incarceration, and does not increase recidivism.
Over the study period, two part-time screening attorneys reviewed 3,815 cases involving 2,942 defendants, covering 71.5% of the office's incoming caseload in Charleston County, SC. The screeners directly disposed of 276 cases, affecting 269 defendants. In total, 5,456 people were part of the study.
Updated findings include:
Cases assigned to screening resolved roughly two weeks faster than cases that went through standard prosecution.
Screening resulted in a 540% increase in dismissed or remanded cases within 60 days of arrest.
Assignment to screening reduced the probability of a guilty plea within one year by 3.4 percentage points, amounting to roughly 117 fewer low-severity convictions.
Screened cases required fewer court hearings on average, saving 260 hearings across 2,603 resolved cases.
Screened cases were less likely to result in pretrial detention lasting 30 to 75 days.
Rearrest rates within 12 months were statistically similar between the screened and control groups. Public safety was not compromised.
The study also breaks new ground on a longstanding gap in prosecution research. Despite the outsized role misdemeanors and low-level felonies play in prosecutor caseloads nationally, there has been little research comparing how different case-handling structures affect outcomes. This report is among the first to fill that gap with randomized, controlled evidence.
Justice Innovation Lab plans to continue tracking long-term outcomes for people whose cases were assigned to screening, including employment, housing, and further system involvement.
The full report is available at: https://knowledgehub.justiceinnovationlab.org/reports/screening-results1-rct-charleston-sc
A policy brief, The Case for Front-End Case Screening, based on this report can be found here: https://www.justiceinnovationlab.org/s/JIL-Policy-Brief-The-Case-for-Front-End-Case-Screening.pdf
About Justice Innovation Lab
Justice Innovation Lab is a nonprofit organization that helps communities develop and evaluate evidence-informed policies that improve the fairness, efficiency, and effectiveness of the criminal legal system.
For media inquiries, contact Kelli Metz at kelli.metz@justiceinnovationlab.org.
About the Ninth Circuit Solicitor's Office
The Ninth Circuit Solicitor's Office serves Charleston and Berkeley Counties in South Carolina. Under the leadership of Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, the office has been a national leader in data-informed prosecutorial reform.
