Over the years, initiatives across NYC have worked to lower the number of youth aging out of foster care without permanent living arrangements, and to provide additional support to those who do. Through our partnership with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII) began funding two local programs to support foster youth transitioning to adulthood in 2018.

As part of its efforts to lower jail populations across America and address racial disparities in the criminal justice system, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge recently funded a project examining racial disparities within a county jail.

The findings highlight the spectrum of service needs indicated by NYC HJN clients and the role of community health workers in helping these individuals navigate the reentry process, address critical needs, and avoid future criminal legal system involvement.

Participation in CIP significantly reduced the risk of reconviction for a new offense following release by two thirds, or 66 percent. Specifically, students who participated in CIP had lower risk of reconviction following release at both six months and 12 months.

The RRC is a national initiative that aims to increase success on probation through the identification, piloting, and testing of promising strategies grounded in a robust analysis and understanding of why revocations occur.

The West Harlem Community Reentry and Restoration Project aimed to support community members who have recently returned, or are soon to return, from incarceration and strengthen the capacity for local community-based organizations to provide services and support violence prevention.

Though policymakers are responsible for establishing the policy frameworks, local agencies and practitioners — court officials, law enforcement, prosecutors, service providers and defense attorneys — are ultimately the ones who carry them out. Their buy-in during the legislative process can ensure policies in theory reach their intended goals in practice.

New York’s sweeping criminal legal reforms went into effect just three months before the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought about its own unique set of challenges. As part of a qualitative process evaluation of how changes were implemented on the ground, we had to quickly adapt our methods to safely and meaningfully interview practitioners as well as interpret data that was now more nuanced.

Changes to New York’s criminal legal system in 2019 involved multiple provisions that touched many facets of the system, but its expansion of pretrial services as an alternative to pretrial detention precipitated significant policy and operational changes. Pulling from a process evaluation of its implementation, here are some recommendations for pretrial service providers to manage the shift.

As part of the overarching goal of creating a fairer and more equitable criminal legal system, the 2019 New York Criminal Justice Reform Act made sweeping changes to how evidence was shared between prosecutors and defenders. Pulling from a process evaluation of its implementation, here are some recommendations for prosecutors to manage the shift.

An innovative assessment approach successfully measures trauma and healing among families impacted by gender-based violence. Administered by a holistic and innovative program in Manhattan that provides family-focused programming, the approach helped participants better understand their healing journeys.

Using a unique approach that focused on families as a whole, the FamilySafe Project (FSP) developed a trauma-informed approach to provide counseling services to families who have experienced gender-based violence.