Read Tanya Anderson’s and Tara Boh Blair’s welcoming remarks to the Texas Association of Pretrial Services annual conference in March 2026. The remarks have been edited for clarity.
It is truly an honor to open this year’s conference, hosted here in Texas, and to stand in a room filled with practitioners and leaders from across Texas and beyond. People who make decisions that affect liberty, community safety, and system credibility. And, while your roles may differ, your shared responsibility is to uphold the presumption of innocence while maximizing public safety, court appearance, and release.
Whether you serve in a rural county, a large urban system, or somewhere in between, we first want to thank you. Thank you for the work you do every single day, often under pressure, with limited resources, and intense public scrutiny.
You show up in courtrooms, offices, and communities making decisions that impact liberty. That is not small work. That is constitutional work.
Look around this room. Different states. Different statutes. Different policies. Different challenges. But one shared responsibility: Pretrial decisions that impact liberty, lives, and communities. And no matter where you serve, one truth remains constant: Pretrial decisions matter. They matter from the very first hearing.
So, let us begin with a simple, but powerful question: Who decides what pretrial stands for in your jurisdiction? Is it headlines, politics, pressure, or is it you?
Because the truth is this: Pretrial is defined every single day by the professionals in this room.
The reports you write, the data you analyze, the recommendations you frame, the conditions you impose, and the way you explain decisions from the bench.
That is influence, leadership, and responsibility. When we think about responsibility, we have to first think about our pretrial foundation.
Let’s talk about foundations.
Sometimes systems are built quickly and in response to jail overcrowding, litigation, legislation, or a system crisis. And from the surface, they look fine. Green grass. Operational. Functional.
But what’s underneath? Because grass can look healthy while the soil is unstable. And if the soil is built on drug testing without purpose, excessive conditions of release, or no meaningful pretrial assessment, then the foundation is weak. And when pressure comes—and it will—cracks appear, and the consequences are real.
When pretrial starts to look like probation, when supervision for someone presumed innocent is heavier than supervision for someone convicted, when we manage failure instead of promoting success, we haven’t just adjusted our practices, we’ve drifted from principle.
So, what does it actually mean to stay true?
It means aligning what we say with what we do. It means grounding innovation in principle. It means anchoring change in values. Staying true is not about resisting reform; it’s about ensuring reform rests on a constitutional footing.
And the core principle is this: The presumption of innocence.
Without meaningful access to pretrial release, the presumption of innocence becomes symbolic rather than real. The principle is also least restrictive conditions, individualized determinations, and evidence-informed practices.
Those principles are not aspirations. That is the legal floor.
Let’s clarify something fundamental. Pretrial is a right. Probation is a privilege. Pretrial is pre-adjudication. Probation is post-conviction. Pretrial protects liberty before guilt is determined. Probation manages behavior after guilt is established. That difference changes everything.
When those lines blur, everything shifts. When pretrial supervision mirrors probation, when escalation becomes automatic, and when we treat risk as guilt, we move away from constitutional grounding.
And the consequences are real.
Research shows unnecessary detention increases conviction rates. Over-conditioning increases failure. Escalation becomes routine, and one domino knocks down the next.
This is why fundamentals are not theoretical; they are protective. They protect liberty. They protect fairness. They protect the legitimacy of the justice system.
So, if unstable soil causes cracks in the foundation, what does strong construction look like?
Think of pretrial as a house. And we know every house must be built from the ground up.
This means that the foundation must be solidly built on legal foundations: the constitution. The presumption of innocence, the least restrictive conditions, and individualized determinations. If this foundation cracks, nothing above it holds. You cannot decorate instability, nor can you honor the presumption of innocence.
After you have secured a solid foundation, then come the structural beams: policy and procedures. If your policies say “individualized” but your procedures are automatic and don’t promote success, what happens? The beams bend. And if your procedures automatically escalate to violations, the beam weakens. That is why alignment matters.
And at the top of your roof, which is your covering, are your mission, vision, and values. That is what the public sees. But if the foundation doesn’t support the roof, the house will not stand.
And at the center is the pretrial agency. The heart of the structure. But the heart only beats if the foundation is sound.
Inside your house or pretrial agency, there should be education, pretrial monitoring, stakeholder communication, and data. These are not accessories. They are load bearing, meaning they carry pressure and hold up the system, keeping the structure stable.
It’s not optional. It’s not cosmetic. It’s foundational. And, if it fails, the entire house or your pretrial agency feels the impact.
Data reveals pressure points.
Education aligns culture.
Monitoring promotes success, not surveillance.
Communication keeps systems from pulling apart.
So, the question for all of us, no matter where you serve: When you return home, is your house aligned from foundation to roof? Or are you patching cracks?
Are your conditions tied to the likelihood of success, or tradition? Does supervision promote success, or primarily respond to failure? Are you using data to make improvements or to defend habits? Are you leading, or reacting?
Staying true is not passive. It is intentional, it is structural, and it is courageous.
Pretrial is one of the most powerful leverage points in the justice system. Small structural changes here ripple outward to jail populations, court efficiency, public trust and community stability.
Pretrial is not about predicting failure; it is about protecting principles. It is not about controlling behavior; it is about honoring liberty. And if we lose the presumption of innocence at pretrial, we don’t just crack the house. We weaken the entire structure of justice, because before a verdict is ever rendered, before guilt is ever proven; pretrial is where justice proves itself first.
As we begin this conference, we ask you to carry one thought with you: Pretrial justice is not measured by how tightly we control people, but by how well we uphold liberty while ensuring court appearance and public safety.
Let this conference be a space where we recommit to that balance. Where we reconnect with the fundamentals. And where we leave not just informed, but re-energized and grounded in purpose.
Because as best said by William Godwin: “No man knows the value of innocence and integrity, but he who has lost them.”
Thank you to TAPS for hosting all of us, and to every jurisdiction represented in this room:
Let’s build well.
Let’s stay aligned.
Let’s stay true.
And remember, pretrial is a right, and probation is a privilege.
Tanya Anderson is associate director and Tara Boh Blair is senior manager at the Center for Effective Public Policy (CEPP). CEPP leads all activities for APPR.
