he program is one in which eligible persons can divert out of the formal criminal court process. The goal is to help reduce court time, jail overcrowding and recidivism. An incentive is to divert out of the formal criminal court process and avoidance of a criminal record. Termination of the contract resumes criminal court proceedings. This may result in criminal convictions and a criminal record. Offenders must be 17 years or be waived from the juvenile jurisdiction, if under 17 years of age. Offenders are ineligible if they have a prior criminal record. The length of the offenders agreement depends on the nature and seriousness of the offense, his/her attitude, commitment and educational or counseling needs. Agreements average 3 to 36 months.

The Evidence-Based Decision Making Initiative emphasizes a system-wide planning process and approach to criminal justice system programming. Eau Claire County has been engaged with the Evidence-Based Decision Making Initiative since 2010 at the local level and since 2020 at the State level. The goal of the Initiative is to build a system-wide framework (arrest through final disposition and discharge) that will result in more collaborative, evidence-based decision-making and practices in local criminal justice systems. CJCC and EBDM team members in Eau Claire County firmly believe that implementation of this program will greatly benefit Eau Claire County citizens by reducing the length of time a person will sit in custody pretrial, determining appropriateness for diversion level services, and ensuring persons are notified of upcoming court cases which will reduce the level of system involvement for our clients. In 2020, Eau Claire County launched the use of The Public Safety Assessment (PSA). The PSA is an algorithmic pretrial risk assessment that judges can use when determining release conditions and the need for monitoring once released from custody. The need for pretrial monitoring has been vetted through our CJCC and EBDM policy teams. In 2015, we identified, through our systems mapping, the expanded need for pretrial monitoring. It wasn’t until the State EBDM team took on pretrial as a charge and approved DOJ funding to support local implementation sites. Through this funding, we were able to implement a formal use of pretrial monitoring. The PSA uses administrative data to produce two risk scores about a defendant: one predicting the likelihood that the individual will commit a new crime if released pending trial, and another predicting the likelihood that they will fail to return for a future court hearing. Scores fall on a scale of one (1) to four (4) with higher scores indicating a greater level of risk. The completion of the PSA and monitoring of these four levels is supported by the DOJ pretrial requested funding.