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NYC earmarks millions to fund social workers to help recidivists
By
Matt Katz
Published Jul 1, 2023
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Matt Katz / Gothamist
By
Matt Katz
Published Jul 1, 2023
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New York City will spend $36.8 million on social services for repeat offenders, encouraging them to stay out of trouble and show up for court as they await trial.
The funding, part of the city budget adopted Friday, will augment the supervised release program which refers criminal defendants to nonprofit agencies, where social workers connect them to services like drug rehabilitation and mental health care.
Tens of thousands of people have been assigned to supervised release rather than sent to Rikers Island to await trial. The social workers who work at the nonprofit agencies, contracted by the city to run the program, say it has helped people avoid rearrest and show up to their court dates.
But until now, supervised release has not been as successful in addressing those who are repeatedly arrested for serious crimes within a short period of time, according to Deanna Logan, director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, which funds and oversees the program. That’s why, she said, the city is piloting an augmented form of supervised release, called “intensive case management,” for recidivists with higher-level needs.
“These are the tools that we have been talking about with our partners that will really move the needle in supporting the population,” Logan said Friday on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, where she publicly detailed the program for the first time.
Approximately 1,100 people will get more intensive case management through supervised release in the coming fiscal year, in part by increasing funding to the current program to reduce case managers’ work load. Logan said that means more attention from their social workers, with requirements that defendants, for example, regularly report in-person to the program and attend cognitive behavioral therapy sessions.
The plan is to expand the program later. Logan said at any given time there are about 9,000 people who have been arrested for felonies while their cases play out on other felony charges. This cohort also has at least three criminal charges over the prior five years, and multiple warrants for failing to appear in court.
Such defendants tend to have “a nervous system response to things that average New Yorkers, average citizens, think of as part of their everyday life, but for those individuals raises a heightened level of fight or flight,” Logan said.
Case managers might meet such individuals on the morning they go to court, she said, to accompany them and make sure they don’t subject themselves to a warrant for missing an appearance. “Additional hands-on [attention] will allow that population of people to be much more successful as they move through the criminal justice system,” she said.
“Many of them have substance abuse disorder, many of them are in familial or marital relationships that may not be functioning properly,” Logan said. “They are either unemployed or underemployed or do not have educational supports.”
Aubrey Fox, executive director of the Criminal Justice Agency, a nonprofit that runs a supervised release program in Queens, is supportive of the new pilot program. “We’re deeply grateful for the city’s support of supervised release, and ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work,” he said.
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Matt Katz
Matt Katz is a former WNYC & Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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