Why Intake+?

Most intake units rely on people, phone calls, and informal review. That works—but it limits what offices can measure, standardize, and improve over time.
Intake does not replace an intake unit.
It strengthens it by turning intake into a measurable, auditable, and continuously improvable system.
Even prompt post-arrest review occurs after costs are incurred:
- Officer time and transport
- Jail booking and medical intake
- Administrative processing
- Initial court handling
Research shows that moving screening upstream—before those steps—produces the largest cost and workload reductions, even in jurisdictions with fast review timelines.
- Quantify prosecutor efficiency at intake (time to decision, rework rates, escalation frequency)
- Measure officer decision quality upstream (what information was available at the time of arrest, what was missing, what improved outcomes)
- Link intake decisions to downstream outcomes (dismissals, detention days, case strength)
- Standardize decision-making across shifts, prosecutors, and agencies in real time
- Preserve structured intake data for training, supervision, or policy review
As a result, offices rely on experience and anecdote—rather than data—to manage one of the most consequential decision points in the system.

What’s Intake?

- District and County Attorney offices
- Offices experiencing high no-action or nolled cases
- Jurisdictions onboarding new prosecutors at scale
- Offices seeking defensible cost containment without reducing public safety
Harris County is the longest-running example of this proven model (since 1977), but independent evaluations around the U.S. confirm scalability.
- Does not limit prosecutorial discretion
  Prosecutors retain full charging authority and final decision-making.
- Does not mandate declinations or approvals
  Intake supports earlier review; it does not dictate outcomes.
- Does not change statutory standards
  Legal thresholds, charging rules, and evidentiary standards remain unchanged.
- Does not require policy shifts
  Offices can operationalize existing practices more consistently—without rewriting policy.
- Does not require loads of training, we build Intake+ to be intuitive so training is in a matter of hours - not days.
- Streamlines the charging & arrest process and unifies data between all relevant agencies and offices.
- Moves screening earlier in the process, before filing or booking
- Embeds office standards and statutory elements directly into intake workflows
- Standardizes decision-making across prosecutors, shifts, and agencies
- Accelerates training for new prosecutors
- Law enforcement
- Creates measurable, auditable intake data for internal review and reporting

Accessing prosecutors earlier empowers officers with
- Identification of missing statutory elements before filing or booking
- Strengthening narratives that align with charging standards
- Fewer cases require rework or later dismissal
- Better-supported PC determinations at the earliest stage
- Direct filing means more time patrolling and less time in report writing and waiting in court
Intake benefits both prosecutors and officers—and improves case quality without increasing workload.
Research suggests the opposite: avoiding weak arrests reduces
- civil exposure
- wrongful detention claims
- civil rights litigation
- reputational and political risk
No. Smaller offices often see faster training, consistency, and ROI.

- In the case of an arrest, Intake sends an alert to the jail’s staff that a defendant is enroute along with their details, and charges, deputies and CO’s will know what to expect in advance.
No. Smaller offices often see faster training, consistency, and ROI.
Research shows 25%-40% of arrests end up being declined by prosecutors. Weeding out those cases before an arrest takes place significantly reduces the pre-trial population.

CEO, Forensic Neuroscientist,

President, Stanford Neuroscientist, Author, Technologist. Learn more…

Harris County Prosecutor, Trainer