Bail Reform News Archive

The scope of New York City’s supervised release program has broadened under the recently enacted bail reform law in New York. “We’ve been in a major hiring push in order to engage the kinds of social workers that we need to deal with this,” said Greg Berman, the outgoing head of the Center for Court Innovation, which runs supervised release programs in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island. 

The New York Times highlights laws across the country going into effect on January 1, 2020, including New York's criminal justice reform. "New York will become the latest state to eliminate cash bail for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, which could see more than 40 percent of inmates released from pretrial detention," citing our bail reform analysis. 

What will bail reform in New York on January 1 look like? “Estimates of what’s going to happen have ranged...There are still a lot of unknowns,” says our director Greg Berman in the New York Times.

In an overview of the laws going into effect in New York in 2020, this article highlights changes to cash bail and discovery reform and references our research and analysis on the potential implications, including an estimate that the pretrial jail population may be reduced by 2,100 people in New York City.

Citing our analysis on the provisions and impact of upcoming reforms to discovery laws governing the sharing of evidence, this article explores the sweeping changes to New York's criminal justice laws going into effect January 2020.

With major changes to bail and pretrial detention laws going into effect in January 2020, Gothamist profiles our supervised release program as a model for what bail reform will look like, and cites our research on how many cases could potentially be affected by this legislation.

This Q&A with Yolaine Menyard and Chidinma Ume provides an overview of the Price of Justice Initiative, which the Center for Court Innovation has been helping to implement with the support of the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Legislation like the recent New York State justice reforms is a powerful tool, but it's no magic bullet. As former New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman and our director, Greg Berman, argue, lasting change also requires the slow grind of transforming practice and culture.

With significant reforms aimed at reducing the harms of the justice system passed in New York State, Adam Mansky, our director of criminal justice, outlines three of our programs already in place that also represent a positive vision of what justice can look like.

We all know what's wrong with the criminal justice system (fairness and humanity are often in short supply). Drawing from our work, our director, Greg Berman, describes some community-based solutions—like violence interruption, trauma-informed care for the justice-involved, and social workers rather than bail or detention pretrial—that are already making a difference.