Resource Library

Guide to Pretrial System Mapping

System mapping is a key way for your team to collaborate and assess how your pretrial system works.

Introduction

System mapping is a key way for your team to understand and assess how your pretrial justice system works. A system map is an essential tool your jurisdiction will use to identify changes your team may want to make to the pretrial system. The mapping process brings together policymakers, first-line supervisors, and line staff to graphically describe the pretrial system, key decision points within the system, information available at each decision point, and time lapse from one key step to the next. The process brings to the surface issues for further inquiry, and sometimes helps identify quick solutions to bottlenecks or inefficiencies.

Learn about the importance of system mapping and the critical information your team will gain through system mapping.

Two Approaches to System Mapping

The purpose of a system map is like that of a good road map: it shows the main interstates as well as all the offramps and side roads. Creating a system map is an iterative process of asking questions, getting detailed information, and discussing the answers. It is describing each decision point, who’s involved, with what information and options, on what kind of timeline. It is a dialogue among those who make policies and the front-line staff charged with implementing them.

Gathering this kind of information through the mapping process takes time, and some team members may resist doing the exercise. The resistance may come because your jurisdiction is small and people believe they already know how everything works. In a large jurisdiction, the system may seem too complex and overwhelming for some stakeholders. Team leadership will have to decide how best to respond to any concerns that arise.

There are many ways to create a system map, but the policy team should expect to engage in a facilitated interactive process designed to articulate a complete “picture” of how decisions are made at each point in the pretrial system. Although it is a time-consuming process, this foundational exercise will inform much of the team’s explorations, discussions, and decision making going forward. By understanding what happens in the pretrial system now, team members can assess how that picture aligns with and differs from their goals and desired outcomes. In many jurisdictions, completing this process helps give policy team members a clearer picture of the work ahead that will lead to the changes they wish to make.

There is no one “right way” to complete system mapping. This section describes two approaches to the mapping process. The first relies exclusively on a single expanded meeting, that is, a nearly day-long meeting that involves the policy team members and invited frontline staff. The second approach uses staff workgroups followed by a similar meeting. You can choose the approach that best suits your jurisdiction and adjust as needed.

The two approaches are similar. Both rely on a set of questions about each decision point; participants use the answers to create the map and discuss what is and what could be.

Approach #1: A Single Policy Team Meeting

This approach relies on the policy team to create the map in a single meeting. This option is more intensive, but it can reduce the total time spent on mapping.

My preference—borne out of experience doing this many times with many teams—is to develop the system map all at once with the full policy team present, along with several additional people from each member’s organization. This concentrated method of system mapping seems to maximize the exchange among participants, generate the most in-depth discussions, and optimize identifying connections, gaps, and opportunities.

Mimi Carter, former principal, Center for Effective Public Policy, and former APPR co-director and TA provider

Best suited for: A jurisdiction in which the high-level policymakers are able to commit time and real effort to the process.

What it looks like: Using this approach, the policy team gathers with line staff and first-line supervisors from each agency/entity involved in the pretrial system, and together they work through each decision point to create the map. You will need to ensure that:

The entire policy team is available to meet for a single six- to eight-hour work session
Identified agency staff are available—preferably for the entire session, but at least for specific blocks of time as needed
The room is large enough for the team and the staff to meet, with wall space to hang the sections of the map as they are developed
Ground rules, including expectations that everyone will participate, speak candidly, and engage in active listening, are determined
Food and beverages are available to participants throughout the workday

Roles and responsibilities: You will need someone to facilitate the mapping session and help the group work through all the decision points. Your team lead or other stakeholder or staff person can perform that role, or you can obtain (sometimes for hire) the assistance of an outside facilitator. Either way, someone will need to capture the details on the flip charts and record key elements of the discussion.

With this approach, each team member is responsible for ensuring that other staff from their agency attend and are prepared to engage with the policy team.

Approach #2: Workgroups Followed by a Policy Team Meeting

This approach relies on workgroups consisting of line staff and first-line supervisors.

I prefer using workgroups instead of a single large group because I want the folks who know the most about their systems to participate. People in small groups tend to be assistant DAs or assistant public defenders—and they may know the most about how the system works. If people in a workgroup are not sure about the answers, they will invite others to participate or seek answers from those who are the most knowledgeable. I find that in large groups, only certain people (sometimes the senior person, elected official, etc.) will provide answers and others may defer.

Richard Stroker, senior associate, Center for Effective Public Policy, and APPR TA provider

Best suited for: Jurisdictions that have multiple law enforcement agencies and/or a number of pretrial partners (such as community-based service organizations), and where the policy team wants their participation but their leadership may not be able to join a team meeting.

What it looks like: The workgroups are organized around the identified decision points (such as law enforcement contact, jail booking, etc.) to create preliminary drafts of their part of the system map. The workgroups meet prior to the policy team meeting and then send representatives to that meeting to share their work and help create the full system map. This approach gives agency staff more time to do a deep dive into their area of expertise. The team lead is responsible for organizing the groups and meetings, and will:

Create the decision-point workgroups identified previously by the policy team (this is described below)
Work with each team member to identify the staff who will participate in each workgroup (see the guidance below)
Schedule the workgroup meetings and find appropriate venues
Invite and confirm the attendance for each workgroup
Attend each meeting to facilitate the discussion, make sure questions are addressed, and ensure that a meeting record is produced

Roles and responsibilities: Each workgroup should choose at least two members to attend the policy team’s mapping session. The team lead will be responsible for ensuring that those representatives attend the expanded team meeting where they will describe the decision point, present their section of the map, and respond to questions.

The following guidelines can help you select workgroup members and conduct workgroup meetings:

Team members should select a diverse group of individuals—those with the greatest knowledge and perspective about the formal policies that guide decision making and about the informal decision making that occurs at each decision point. The workgroups should include both front-line staff and first-line/mid-level supervisors.
It is strongly recommended that staff from each agency who are familiar with or responsible for data collection and analysis participate in the workgroups and the system mapping exercise. Data are important components of a system map, and including knowledgeable staff in the process will help them understand what is needed when the time comes to collect these data.
For purposes of continuity, it may be helpful for one or more policy team members to sit in on the workgroup meetings. During the policy team meeting, those participants may also be able to play a valuable role by prompting workgroup members to discuss examples of what happens at “their” decision point(s) or to provide their perspective on the information presented.

Creating Your Map

Conduct a Planning Meeting

Before your team meets to create the system map together, hold a policy team meeting to plan how you will conduct the mapping process. Coming out of this meeting, the team should have reached consensus about the decision points to include in your system map, approved the approach to system mapping, and identified the staff who will participate in the mapping exercise.

To facilitate this meeting, the project champion and the team lead will describe the mapping process by reviewing the tasks required to complete the system map and explaining what is expected of team members and their staff in terms of participation. They will also recommend which approach the team should use to complete the map.

Identify all the Decision Points

Regardless of which approach you choose, the mapping process must begin with the policy team identifying all the pretrial decision points in your system. Show them APPR’s illustrated pretrial decision points. Then facilitate a brainstorming session to capture all the decision points in your jurisdiction that lead to a case’s conclusion. Record the points on a flip chart. When the team members have exhausted all their ideas, arrange the points in sequence if you haven’t been able to do that along the way.

Consider which decision points exist in your pretrial system and where potential opportunities for improvement exist.

Identify Agency Staff

Agency staff must participate in the mapping process to help the policy team understand the complexity of the decisions made at each point. Depending on the approach you take, staff will either work in small groups that focus on each decision point before meeting with the policy team to discuss their efforts or staff will meet with the policy team to work on the map together.

Each of the relevant agencies is typically represented on the policy team. So, each team member should put together a small group of their staff, including front-line staff and supervisors, who have knowledge about how things happen at the decision point in question: police, service providers, prosecutors, judicial officers, public defenders, pretrial services staff, court administrators, booking staff, jail staff, and anyone else who may play a role at one of these points.

Some agencies may be involved at multiple decision points and, if you decide to use the workgroup approach, their staff may need to participate in more than one workgroup. For example, the police department is involved in the first contact with a person suspected of committing a crime (often the first pretrial decision point) and may also have the authority to book or release someone at a station house.

Prepare for the System Mapping Exercise

Whether the policy team is creating the system map or workgroups are preparing sections of it, the same questions are used to gather the information you will need. For each decision point, the group must answer these questions:

Who is involved in the decision making?
What are the desired outcomes?
What are the major options available to the decision maker?
What formal procedures or policies are followed?
What information is needed to make decisions?
What data are collected and how are they stored?
What other factors are considered, including unspoken or implicit norms?
How much time typically elapses between decision points?
How quickly can the decision be made at each point?
What are the challenges and barriers to effective and efficient decision making?

Understanding the importance of looking at the entire system.

As these questions are answered and details are added for each decision point, the resulting information should be turned into a separate narrative for each point. The narratives will be added to the completed map (as addenda) and can be changed as the team’s work progresses. Typically, a one- or two-sentence paragraph suffices for each decision point.

As you discuss each decision point—whether working with the policy team or in workgroups—staff should be asked what they would change about that part of the system if they could. Staff should also be prompted to think about what works really well and what strengths the agencies bring to each decision point. Staff’s answers should be kept as part of the record. Through their answers and the discussion, the group should identify places where immediate changes could be made to achieve greater efficiency, equity, and justice while preserving those things that work well.

As the policy team learns about and discusses each point, its members should reflect on whether what they’ve heard represents the principles and values they think should drive decision making in their system. Those reflections should be part of the team’s discussions.

Facilitate the Meeting

Someone from within your system, such as the team lead, or an outsider, such as a consultant, will serve as the primary facilitator of the system mapping exercise. The meeting is a time for the policy team to ask questions of agency staff and one another, complete a draft of the map, note any areas that can be addressed quickly, and identify any questions or concerns for the team to take up at future meetings.

System stakeholders and community group representatives map their pretrial system in Montgomery County, Alabama.

The project champion should take these steps to start the mapping meeting:

Restate the purpose of system mapping
Provide an overview of the meeting and the agenda
Describe the steps team members will take after the meeting to finalize the map, including the opportunities they will have to review the map further
Remind everyone of any meeting ground rules
Encourage agency staff who are present to be forthright in their answers and not hesitant to correct errors in the map or in the discussion

As the team is working through the map, someone should be tasked with keeping track of outstanding questions, gaps in information, and ideas for improving the process—all for discussion at future meetings.

If you have chosen the approach of a single policy team meeting, you will need at least six to eight hours, and possibly a second meeting. If you decide to use workgroups to draft sections of the map in advance, the policy team meeting will likely be shorter, perhaps four to six hours; however, in a large system, the meeting may last longer. Please be prepared for either option to take most of a day.

Draft Your Map

The result of the system mapping exercise is likely to be a set of flip charts with an array of squiggly lines, notes, and question marks. The map is not yet completed.

Those flip charts and accompanying notes have a lot of information. The task now is to turn them into useful documents that can help the policy team assess their pretrial system and make decisions about improving it. To turn the information from the flip charts into a polished system map, the team lead and policy team will need to do the following:

The team lead—with the assistance of senior staff from the agencies if needed—should take the flip charts and create a version of the system map in electronic form. This is often done in Word or PowerPoint, but you could use flowchart software or other flowchart tools. Color-coding the map by the lead agency (i.e., yellow for police, blue for jail, etc.) is helpful for clarity. See the System Map Example.
For each decision point, create an accompanying narrative that includes the details provided during the decision point discussions (such as the information and options available, the formal policies and common practices that guide the decision, who makes the decision, and the time it takes to make the decision and move the case forward). See the System Map Narrative Example.
Check the decision point narratives with the staff who provided the information to make sure they are correct.
Identify the data and information to include on the map. The team lead should work with information technology or analyst staff from the relevant agencies to obtain the needed data and information for each decision point. If those data are not available, the completed map should indicate that.

Once the system map is created in electronic form, the policy team should meet again to review and discuss the draft. The team may want additional information and data before finalizing the map.

Include Data in Your System Map

Your system map will be substantially more useful when it includes data about your system, such as the number and percentage of people reaching and leaving each pretrial decision point, as well as the average amount of time between the decision points.

Data can help policymakers understand the breadth of the system’s contacts by displaying the number of people who are “offramped” at various steps and the number who are detained pretrial. The map can identify the existing options for off-ramping, but simply describing what those options are does not convey their limitations or potential. For example, your jurisdiction may have a diversion program, but if its capacity is too small to accommodate everyone who is eligible, your jurisdiction might be missing the benefit of a potentially valuable offramp. Similarly, a crisis center that can accept only a fraction of the people whom law enforcement indicates could benefit from its services could be indirectly contributing to an increased number of people being detained. Also, the average time between steps in the process can help the policy team identify the decision points where cases bottleneck.

Consider answering these questions for the most recent year for which you have data. The data should correspond to the map:

How many people reach each decision point?
From each decision point, how many people go to each of the different options, for example, arrest, citation, referral to services, first appearance, detention, etc.?
What is the capacity of available “offramp” services?
What is the average length of time between the major decision points?
What is the average length of time from first contact to case adjudication or dismissal?

Hard numbers can deepen participants’ questions and discussion, so it is helpful to provide as much of these data as possible to the workgroups and the policy team as part of the mapping exercise. But most jurisdictions are unlikely to collect these data before the meetings. Indeed, some or most of these data may be difficult to gather even after the meetings.

Finalize Your Map

The following tasks will need to be completed to finalize your pretrial system map:

Review notes from the system mapping session. Refine and categorize the notes, questions, and ideas from the policy team meeting (and the workgroups if you used them). Include a list of the data you were unable to access and a timeline for getting it, if known.
Make sure your next policy team meeting is scheduled. If you don’t have a recurring time for policy team meetings already scheduled, set the date and add a meeting to team members’ calendars to review the draft system map, discuss any remaining questions, and finalize the map.
When the map is finalized, hold a policy team meeting to show the map and summarize the steps in your local pretrial process. Different stakeholders or policy team members can each present their portion of the map (law enforcement can present the arrest decisions, jail staff can describe booking, judicial officers can describe what occurs at first appearance, etc.).

Next Steps

Compare Your Map to Practices Supported by the Law and Research

One way to better understand your pretrial system’s opportunities to become more fair, effective, and efficient is to look at the events and decisions illustrated in your map and at the laws, policies, and best practices that underlie them. To do this, the policy team may first need to educate themselves about what those laws, policies, and best practices are.

For example, if your system still requires people who are likely to appear in court and remain law-abiding during the pretrial phase to post a financial bond to leave jail, your system is losing the opportunity to mitigate the negative consequences associated with detention (e.g., decreased earnings, loss of employment and public benefits, increased likelihood of new arrests). Similarly, if people do not meet their defense counsel until after their first appearance hearing, they are more likely to spend more time in pretrial detention than if they had been represented. Your map will display where your current process falls short of practices supported by the law and research to achieve better outcomes.

Share Your Map

Justice system stakeholders—law enforcement, jail administrators, prosecutors, defense counsel, judicial officers, and others—largely work independently. As a result, stakeholders often do not fully understand how a person moves through the justice system. Your system map is an opportunity to improve understanding of how your system works. Use your map to prepare presentation slides and speaker notes. Ask members of your policy team to share your map, along with data, to the agencies in your pretrial system. Explain where the process uncovered areas of strengths and opportunities for improvement. Ask staff for their ideas and share their feedback with your policy team.

Update Your Map

Your pretrial system map is not a static document. The policy team should periodically update it so it illustrates how your pretrial system is functioning. Changes to local policies and practice, such as implementing a new pretrial assessment or altering prosecution priorities, may change the flow of the steps and decision points, as well as the data, in your map. New legislation or changes in funding may do the same thing. When these events occur, it is important that you update your system map to reflect the changes. The policy team is then better positioned to evaluate how the changes have advanced, or hindered, your pretrial system getting closer to making its pretrial vision a reality.