Are Pretrial Services Officers Reliable in Rating Pretrial Risk Assessment Tools?

Pretrial risk assessments have been developed and used to help ensure that recommendations for pretrial release or detention are fair and consistent. The author investigates the inter-rater reliability of the Ohio Risk Assessment Tool  (ORAS-PAT) in a sample of 21 pretrial services officers, finding that officers demonstrated "good" to "excellent" inter-rater reliability on all 7 items, the total score, and the summary risk classification of the ORAS-PAT.