Manhattan Justice Opportunities

Our knowledge about what works and what doesn’t in the field of justice reform has grown significantly in recent decades, but our willingness to pilot new initiatives has not kept pace. Through a focus on a pioneering New York City court, this article argues alternative-to-incarceration programs should follow the research and open participation to more charges, including violent ones, and seek to address a wider array of needs.

This fact sheet summarizes the mission and impact of Manhattan Justice Opportunities, a program of the Center for Justice Innovation, that helps build safer communities and a fairer justice system by providing social services and supportive resources as effective alternatives to the traditional responses to crime, empowering people to make positive changes in their lives.

The idea behind Manhattan’s Felony Alternative-to-Incarceration (ATI) Court is simple: what if the justice system could help people address the core life issues that led to an arrest in order to prevent it from happening again?