Important updates from your MAPSA Vice President
As we all get ready for the upcoming winter months, MAPSA will be in high gear regrouping and reenergizing now and into 2012. The Board has been meeting throughout the summer months discussing and strategizing ways to enhance the involvement of our membership. We have been listening to your comments and advice for a more dynamic conference, the possibility of regional trainings, and valuing your membership with regular correspondence, news and interesting articles (both local and national) in the world of pretrial. I believe you will begin to see the positive change as we move into 2012.
That said, we have decided the best way to spend this next year accomplishing our goals is to postpone our next statewide training until 2013. We realized that the other areas of our organization were beginning to lose steam due to the enormous amounts of time each winter focused on developing our annual conference. For those of you new to MAPSA, we also have a membership committee and a legislative committee. Our intent is to fill our MAPSA Board vacancies, connect with the regions directly and develope a curriculum for smaller regional trainings. We want to also look closely at any legislative issues that may affect pretrial in the coming years. We are aware that the bail bond movement across the country has been trying to elimi- nate the need for pretrial services in the court systems. This may eventually become an issue MAPSA will need to respond to in the coming years or possibly in months.
We expect to begin planning the 2013 conference in the early fall of 2012. We welcome ideas as to presentations, presenters and any other constructive advice you may have as we move forward in these exciting times. Feel free to contact any of the current Board members or emailing our group by clicking here. We hope you have wonderful holiday season, and we look forward to providing you with further updates as to our progress in the coming months!
- Diana K Wilkie MAPSA Vice PresidentMinnesota Association of Pretrial Services Agencies
MAPSA is an organization that is dedicated to improving the field of pretrial services. Pretrial services includes pretrial screening, bail/bond studies and adult and juvenile diversion programs. Our association provides annual training for it's members, prints quarterly newsletters and continues to strive to improve services for pretrial defendants in Minnesota.
Our Mission
The mission of the Minnesota Association of Pretrial Services Agencies is to create a more safe and just criminal justice system by providing quality training to our members, promoting information to improve pretrial programs and promoting the importance of pretrial services in Minnesota.