A large Missouri county cut pretrial jail days by more than 60% in its first year

The county runs one of the largest pretrial programs in Missouri's RePath network. It started with 67 people in January 2020. By May 2026 more than 5,400 people had come through it. The county had a problem every large jurisdiction has: a judge decides someone can go home, and then the person sits in jail anyway because the only supervision option on the table is an ankle monitor they cannot pay for.

The decision that changed the jail count

The county did not buy technology and hope. It changed how release decisions get made. Every week, county corrections staff sit down with the judge and the prosecutor's office and review about 20 cases. At least half of them go on RePath instead of staying in jail, most of them people who could not afford a monitor. Without that option they would still be in a cell. That weekly meeting is the mechanism behind every number on this page.

Enrollment happens on the participant's own phone. Check-ins, court-date reminders, location context, and two-way messaging run through the app. Nothing is fitted, nothing is returned, and nothing walks off.

What the county counted

In the first year, pretrial jail days fell by more than 60%. That is about 150,000 jail days, or roughly 400 fewer people in jail on any given day. At Missouri's daily rate, the state's jail reimbursement to the county came down by $3.9 million in that year alone. These are counted days, not a model.

The pattern held. Comparing the three fiscal years before RePath with the six since (skipping the launch year), what the state pays the county for pretrial detention dropped 31%: from an average of $4.66 million a year to $3.21 million.

Fewer people missed court

Reminders are a large part of why the jail count stayed down. The county's compliance supervisor puts it plainly: the reminder piece is a big part of what keeps people showing up for court, and the county would have a lot more people in jail without it. Across Missouri, counties that do not use RePath bill the state 58% more per resident for pretrial detention than counties that do.

Recidivism went down three years running

Using the Missouri Department of Corrections definition, recidivism in the county declined three years in a row: 24%, then 32%, then 36%, year over year from 2019 to 2022. This is the county's own trend over those years, which is why we say recidivism declined rather than RePath reduced it. It is still the direction a pretrial director wants to see.

What it looks like for the person on release

The program is built so that the phone becomes the accountability tool rather than a liability. Participants describe it that way themselves. One said each check-in reminded them they were one day closer to getting their life back. Another called it the best program in the state.

Why it matters beyond one county

Missouri now has more than 10,000 people on RePath at any one time across 22 judicial circuits, including four of the state's five largest counties. This county is where the model was proven at scale, and it is the reference point for any county asking whether smartphone supervision can carry a pretrial docket.