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Q&A
Funding and programs for reducing jail population and alternatives to incarceration
7:50:57
ยท
10 min
Council Member Yusef Salaam inquires about the $1.5 billion budgeted for initiatives to reduce jail population and provide alternatives to incarceration. MOCJ officials discuss various programs and strategies aimed at this goal.
- Programs include supervised release, alternatives to incarceration (ATI), reentry services, and transitional housing.
- MOCJ is working to make the criminal justice system more efficient, focusing on reducing the number of people entering jail and increasing those leaving.
- The $1.5 billion is primarily within the DOC capital plan.
- MOCJ is collaborating with the Lippman Commission to expand ATIs and address the needs of the seriously mentally ill population.
- Efforts are being made to reduce case processing times and provide better assessment tools earlier in the process.
Yusef Salaam
7:50:57
I'm gonna move to closing Rikers Island.
7:51:46
We have been informed by the administration that there's approximately 1,500,000,000.0 currently budgeted for initiatives to reduce the jail population and provide responsible alternatives to incarceration.
7:51:57
Can you confirm that the budget includes this funding and what programs and services does the administration currently fund to meet the goals of responsibly reducing the jail population?
Deanna Logan
7:52:13
So I will thank you for the question.
7:52:15
I will let our chief financial officer keep the numbers so I don't get everything twisted, but in terms of the programming and the initiatives, I will also give our chief of staff a time to discuss them, but we are ensuring that we are looking at reentry services.
7:52:36
What we're trying to do is make sure that as a whole the criminal legal system is functioning efficiently.
7:52:46
We're making sure that there are less people going in and more people coming out.
7:52:51
That's the straight math.
7:52:53
So for supervised release, what are the programs, what are the services that the courts, that the DAs, that the defenders all agree they need in order to have individuals that can safely navigate their cases in community, stay in community.
7:53:10
For individuals that are currently on Rikers, we continue to work with the population review team with CJI to continue to look at individuals.
7:53:19
All of the DAs are very responsive.
7:53:23
We are able to call, we are able to have conversations about individuals and cases for them to look at again.
7:53:30
And as we're talking about making sure that people just don't go back, so giving them either alternatives to incarceration or the ability to reenter community where they have foundation so that they are not coming back into the system.
Nora Daniel
7:53:48
So just to reiterate director Logan was mentioning, we do run supervised release through MACH.
7:53:55
We work with five providers to to fund that program and last year there were about twenty eight thousand cases that came through supervised release.
7:54:04
In addition to that, we have alternatives to incarceration whose goal is to really work with people and provide the services that they need so that they are less likely to return to the criminal justice system.
7:54:14
So through that program, over the lifetime of the alternatives to incarceration, the most recent contract, it's averaged about 6,600 people a year, and last year was around 8,000.
7:54:26
So we've seen some increase in the use of ATI's.
7:54:30
And we also work with 10 reentry providers to do discharge planning on island, as director Logan mentioned in testimony, and also to provide in community services for reentry, and that has about 4,000 people a year in that programming.
7:54:47
We also have transitional housing that seeks to connect people to a safe place to land when they're leaving jail or prison, which is also has an impact on how people ensuring that people are less likely to come back into the system.
Deanna Logan
7:55:04
And just to be clear, the transitional housing program is not just a bed, as I said, it's foundation, but it also is very proactive.
7:55:13
So our director for transitional housing worked with other stakeholders to change hearts and minds and created an initiative that was open minds, open doors, making sure that we're addressing the stigma and the misconceptions about individuals coming back to community so that landlords and brokers and your neighbor who has a two family house would be making their units available for individuals who are coming back who need, as I will quote Yolanda Johnson Pieterkin, second, third, fourth, and fifth chances in order to become functioning and and reintegrated with their community members.
Yusef Salaam
7:56:09
Can you clarify the $1,500,000,000 as to where that is in the budget?
7:56:17
I'm sorry, could you repeat the question, sir?
7:56:20
Just wanted clarification on where the $1,500,000,000 was in the budget.
Robert Fiato
7:56:27
1,500,000,000.0 is primarily within the DOC capital plan,
Yusef Salaam
7:56:53
What funding does the preliminary budget include to address PICs with a mental health diagnosis?
Nora Daniel
7:57:07
So the funding for people in custody who who have mental health diagnoses that comes through correctional health system, correctional health services, so that funding is within their budget.
Yusef Salaam
7:57:24
And how is mock j working to eliminate unnecessary incarceration in our city?
Nora Daniel
7:57:34
So as we were you know as we're talking about all of our our work is designed around creating a justice system that's smaller, safer, and fairer and that still maintains public safety for all New Yorkers.
7:57:49
And so in order to do that we run programs that either divert people away from jail or prison or seek to and or seek to reduce the likelihood of someone returning.
7:58:00
So that's within supervised release which diverts people away, could divert people away from incarceration as they await their case disposition, and then alternative to incarceration which diverts people away from jail or prison as the accountability measure when their case is is resolved.
Yusef Salaam
7:58:22
Are there any tools that mock j currently has that can be leveraged to increase the ATI's and lower the population at Rikers Island?
Nora Daniel
7:58:34
So we're committed to continuing to work with all of our partners to make sure that ATI's are used to their fullest extent.
7:58:41
It's definitely something that we are continuing to work on.
7:58:44
We have been working with our research in our research innovation team to develop both quality assurance measures and also better data to really dig in to see where the gaps are that we need to fill in order to make sure that the ATI's are being used to their fullest extent.
Yusef Salaam
7:59:06
Has your office met with the Lipman Commission to discuss how Mach J can assist in expanding ATI's?
Deanna Logan
7:59:17
We have actually spoken to different members of the Littmann Commission about multiple areas of not only the ATI's, but addressing the larger seriously mental ill population, we continue to have those conversations and find common grounds as to where we can do better, where we can talk to our partners to do better, and where there may be options for new ideas of things to start doing.
Yusef Salaam
7:59:49
And what assistance is mock j able to provide with regards to upcoming Littmann Commission recommendations for lowering the population of Rikers?
Deanna Logan
8:00:04
When we look at lowering the population of Rikers, again we're talking about the programming, but we're also talking about how we can move the needle of individuals who are staying in custody for longer periods of time with delay.
8:00:28
So when we are looking at what tools we have, one of the things we've talked to various members of the DA's offices as well as to other stakeholder partners is to think about how we, in line with what the courts are doing, can get the information to DA's and to defenders sooner.
8:00:48
So where in the flow of individuals coming through the criminal legal system can we give better assessment tools?
8:00:56
Where can we give better screening tools so that people have more information sooner and can make more concrete decisions sooner.
8:01:04
One of the things that our research innovation team has looked at is very specifically the timeline for adjournments and understanding that reducing the time to adjournment by even just one day could actually save 67 beds in in Rikers.
8:01:24
And so looking at it not only holistically at the individuals and what the services that are are needed to be provided, but looking very concrete using the empirical data to look at what is actually happening within the system and what the system can do to better address the case processing needs, address the needs of the individuals are the tools that we bring to the table with all of our stakeholders.