SUCCESSUL REENTRY

The fastest growing category of admissions to prisons and jails is people who were already under post-release supervision at the time of their incarceration. Nationally, two-thirds of people in state prisons are rearrested within a year of their release, three-quarters are rearrested within five, and 55 percent are incarcerated again. In New York, 78 percent of people who return to prison or jail are re-incarcerated for parole violations, not new offenses; and the vast majority of them have not committed violent crimes, and the harms of the system’s failure to support returning community members extends not only to people who are imprisoned, but to their families, friends, and communities.

Addressing reentry requires both “front-end” and “back-end” solutions: preventing people from becoming ensnared by criminal justice involvement, and providing them with the resources to succeed even when they become criminal justice involved.

The District Attorney has an obligation to consider the collateral consequences of her decision-making at every step of the process. That is why Lucy is committed to reimagining reentry with a preventative lens, accounting for the heavy toll that justice system involvement will take when deciding whether and with what to charge someone.

To pursue front-end solutions, Lucy will:

• Exercise discretion to prevent people from entering the justice system when their involvement will cause excessive harm (e.g. when future challenges to re-entry outweigh the current risk to public safety).

• Devise responsible charge declination policies that account for historical inequities, particularly with respect to policing of communities of color, and structural inequalities that contribute to poverty, resulting in increased quality-of- life and other non-violent conduct.

• Encourage ADAs to factor reentry and recidivism risk into their initial decision-making regarding charging and recommendations for bail and pre-trial detention.

• Support individualized determinations of the conditions of pretrial and post- sentence supervision that account for the unique needs and risks of every person.

• Communicate to the NYPD that reentry is a top priority for the DA’s Office.

• Waive all mandatory court surcharges, fines, and fees because these penalties have an indisputible racial and economic bias.

• Eliminate cash bail, replacing it with supervised release programming including peer navigators to ensure that people are able to stay in their communities successfully during the pendency of their case.

• Advocate for placement consistent with needs so that even in cases in which a prison sentence is required, people can be incarcerated in facilities with services relevant to their needs.

• Plan for reentry prior to and as part of disposition in collaboration with defense counsel.

• Develop protocols, in conjunction with survivor advocates, for approval of parole board release at the earliest eligible date in the absence of exceptional circumstances that constitute a clear, demonstrable risk to public safety.

• End the use of parole status as an aggravating factor in bail and sentencing decisions for low-level crimes.

As part of her commitment to back-end solutions, Lucy will:

• Hire formerly incarcerated people to work at the DA’s Office in a variety of policy and Office functions.

• Support correctional education and vocational programs and push lawmakers to collect better data on the availability of these programs across New York State.

• Help people maintain their support networks while incarcerated by advocating for placement into correctional facilities as close to their residence as possible, and advocating for opportunities for family visitation and communication.

• Partner with community-based organizations to ease the reentry process by connecting people with community-specific assistance and planning for release.

• Advocate for the removal of barriers for returning citizens, such as prohibitions on living in NYCHA housing and criminal history disclosure requirements.

• Support programs that provide immediate support and service to people returning from jail and prison to facilitate housing needs, employment, further educational attainment, health services, and medical treatment.

• Develop programs geared toward addressing family restoration for people who have experienced long-term incarceration.

• Support “ban-the-box” and other initiatives that seek to limit the collateral consequences of a criminal record for employment and other essential activities.

• Actively seek opportunities to retroactively seal and/or expunge criminal records for low-level crimes and other non-violent offenses.

• Support pre-release career assessments for people during incarceration to understand their skills and talents in order to prepare them for the field of their choice during reentry.

• Push for the end of using drug-related violations as a justification for denying parole and for re-incarcerating people, instead offering clinical services if and when recommended by a health professional.

• Ensure that prisons have the capacity to meet individual health needs by expanding access to treatments for substance misuse, mental health and behavioral challenges, and retroactively diverting people out of the prison system where their needs cannot be met within it.