For decades, courts in Lucas County decided who was staying in jail and who might get out based almost exclusively on the charge they faced.

Recently, that changed.

Under a new risk-assessment system developed by the Houston-based Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the pretrial/​presentence services staff who write bond reports on defendants booked at the Lucas County jail now are evaluating defendants based primarily on their criminal histories.

They also are looking at the defendants’ risks for reoffending and not showing up in court.

“We want to reduce unnecessary detention while ensuring court appearances and community safety,” said Marie Van Nostrand, project manager for Luminosity, a criminal-justice consulting firm hired by Lucas County Common Pleas Court.

While it is hoped the new system may help reduce crowding at the jail, that remains to be seen.

Court Administrator Don Colby said a defendant charged with a felony count of burglary who has never been in trouble with the law before likely would be recommended for release under the new system, while a misdemeanor offender who has a long history of misdemeanor offenses and missed court appearances likely would be kept in jail.

“It sort of reverses what we would’ve done two weeks ago,” Mr. Colby said. “What I’m hoping for with the new bond tool — and I’m not going to say it’s going to make the jail population go up or go down — is that it’s going to result in a different jail population.”

Ms. Van Nostrand said that in Kentucky, where the system has been in place statewide for 18 months, release rates have risen and detention rates have fallen.

“I think it’s potentially a good jail population management tool,” she said.

Judges ultimately decide what bond to set for a defendant who comes before them, but they rely in part on the bond reports prepared by pretrial services.

“Are the judges going to buy into this?” a somewhat skeptical Jon Richardson, a longtime criminal defense attorney, asked Ms. Van Nostrand during a recent information session.

She responded that in Kentucky, judges are following the bond recommendations.

“It’s a tool for the court to help inform the decision,” she said. “It doesn’t replace the judge’s decision. It doesn’t replace judicial discretion.”

She said the risk assessment is based on research that reveals, in part, that the longer a low-risk defendant is locked up, the more likely the defendant is to reoffend. He or she is more likely to lose a job or a home, or to experience the kind of desperation that leads to additional criminal activity.

“The majority of the time we think that the risk assessment and the resulting recommendation is going to produce the best results,” she said. “It’s not charge-driven. It’s risk-driven, and those are not necessarily the same.”

Mr. Colby said the court hired Luminosity for $19,000 to implement the new system.

Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.

First Published February 2, 2015, 5:00 a.m.