Katie Green
Affiliate Director
Welcome to NAPSA
The North Carolina Pretrial Services Association (NCPSA) recently became an Affiliate organization with NAPSA. We welcome the great leadership of this Association guided by current NCPSA President Chuck Johnson.Virginia Model Validation
Virginia Community Criminal Justice Association (VCCJA) is proud to announce the validation and implementation of the revised Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument (VPRAI), also know as the “Virginia Model.” The original research resulted in the first multi-jurisdictional research-based pretrial risk assessment in the United States. Virginia’s validation of the VPRAI began in March 2007 and implementation of the validated and modified VPRAI concluded in June 2009.The Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) and VCCJA partnered with Luminosity, Inc. to conduct the validation study. The primary purpose of the validation is to confirm predictive validity – in this case that the instrument is able to predict future failure to appear for court and re-arrest pending trial for defendants in Virginia. Details of this project can be found in the recently released research report "Pretrial Risk in Virginia: The Virginia Risk Assessment Instrument." The report, which can be found on the Luminosity, Inc. website (http://www.luminosity-solutions.com), includes background on pretrial services in Virginia, an overview of pretrial risk assessment nationally, a review of the original VPRAI development and the recent validation, and VPRAI completion instructions. The research was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and in partnership with the DCJS and VCCJA.