"The biggest criminal justice reform you’ve never heard of” received a major boost of support in the new New York City budget
Under the new handshake budget agreement, the city will invest an additional $36.8 million in the highly successful but over-subscribed Supervised Release Program, which keeps people awaiting trial out of Rikers and in community with access to supportive services.
As leaders of the organizations that oversee the Supervised Release Program -- CASES, Center for Justice Innovation, The Fortune Society, and New York City Criminal Justice Agency -- we are deeply grateful to Speaker Adrienne Adams and Councilmember Carlina Rivera for their leadership in ensuring this critical program can serve even more New Yorkers.
Supervised Release is a powerful tool for judges to ensure that people charged with crimes come back to court and have the support they need while they await disposition of their case. Under Supervised Release, social workers, credible messengers, and other professionals with lived experience (rather than law enforcement officers) help create personalized plans for , which can include voluntary or mandated community-based programming, such as counseling, job training, and help obtaining benefits. Thanks to Supervised Release, tens of thousands of New Yorkers have been able to safely stay in their communities—rather than languish in jail—and keep their jobs, take care of their children, and pay their rent.
In the past three years, Supervised Release caseloads have more than doubled, ordered as a condition of release in more than 20,500 cases in 2022 alone. However, the city’s budget had not kept pace with recent growth, making it harder for the program to function as intended given ballooning caseloads and lack of additional resources for more staffing and programming. The additional funding in the Fiscal Year 24 budget is a very welcome commitment by the New York City Council and Administration to address this growth.
We believe it is a major step to making Supervised Release even stronger, and look forward to working with the Council and Administration to build a continuum of community-based and jail-based services delivered by social workers and peers at partner nonprofit agencies. Together, we can lower caseloads, offer additional and more robust services to address the full range of participants’ needs, and ensure this incredible program fulfills its purpose and promise to the courts, to program participants, and to all New Yorkers.
Courtney Bryan, Executive Director, Center for Justice Innovation.
Aubrey Fox, Executive Director, New York City Criminal Justice Agency
Jonathan McLean, CEO, CASES
JoAnne Page, President & CEO, The Fortune Society