To identify ways to safely reduce the use of jail, the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice commissioned research on the path from arrest through bail to sentencing. The research also examined how much taxpayers spend on incarceration.
Dannel P. Malloy, the governor of Connecticut, was the keynote speaker at Justice Innovations in Times of Change, a summit sponsored by the Center for Court Innovation and the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance in September 2016. The governor spoke about reforms under way in his state that have raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18, reduced the use of incarceration, and lowered crime to levels not seen since the 1960s.
This report documents the bail payment process in New York City courts and correctional facilities and provides 17 recommendations to improve practices. Based on these recommendations, the city is implementing a number of solutions detailedhere.
In this New Thinking podcast, Reuben J. Miller, assistant professor of social work at the University of Michigan, and his research collaborator Hazelette Crosby-Robinson discuss some of the criticisms that have been leveled against risk assessment tools. Those criticisms include placing too much emphasis on geography and criminal history, which can distort the actual risk for clients from neighborhoods that experience an above-average presence of policing and social services.
In January 2016, jail reduction and victim advocates discussed strategies for including the voices of survivors of crime in implementing pretrial supervised release programs. This document highlights the far-reaching and complicated discussion.
Mike Lawlor, Connecticut's under secretary for Criminal Justice Policy and Planning, discusses Governor Dannel P. Malloy's Second Chance Society, a series of justice reforms (including dramatic changes to bail and juvenile justice policies) that seek to reduce crime, lower spending on prisons, and help rebuild relationships between criminal justice professionals and the communities they serve.
Elizabeth Glazer, director of the New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, speaks about strategies for safely reducing the population of Rikers Island during a visit to the Center for Court Innovation.
This report presents findings from a study examining the impact of the Brooklyn Supervised Release Program, which engages misdemeanants who cannot afford relatively low bail amounts.
New York State Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks responds to the question: How does the supervised release program at Brooklyn Justice Initiatives fit into the court system's bail reform efforts?
In this article from the Winter 2014 issue of the Government, Law, and Policy Journal of the New York Bar Association, Greg Berman and Robert V. Wolf examine the wide range of alternative-to-incarceration initiatives being pioneered by the New York State courts.
