Criminal Justice Reform
Blurring the Lines between Criminals Needs and Victim’s Rights
New York City is under a new administration, both in the City Council and Gracie Mansion. The belief of these political leaders is that criminals are being mistreated, incarcerated unfairly, and unjustly forced to comply with rules and court process. In turn, this is causing criminals to be re-arrested for failure to obey laws and rules the first time around.
A program is being expanded citywide on March 1, 2016 called Supervised Release, initiated by the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ). The Supervised Release Program uses a pre-trial risk assessment to determine likelihood to re-offend or failure to return to court. These recommendations are made by Supervised Release staff (social workers) to judges at the arraignments of arrested persons.
As detailed above in a flow chart from the MOCJ, the staff of Supervised Release conducts a risk assessment screening, gets permission from the defense attorney, and interviews the client. At arraignment the Supervised Release staff advocate on behalf of the client. There is one key aspect of the criminal justice arraignment system that appears to be missing. Does anyone speak with the District Attorney’s office? As the system was, the District Attorney (or representative) used the Criminal Procedure Law to recommend the possible bail amount, remand, or release on their own recognizance to the judge. In the new system the District Attorney loses that responsibility due to the judge hearing from Supervised Release personnel.
The following quote from a New York County Lawyer’s Association briefing, shows the lack of involvement of the prosecution, “There is also no specified quantum of proof needed for a court to use preventive detention and the district attorney need not make any arguments or meet any burdens. The court would be required to consider preventive detention in every case and give it equal weight with the defendant’s likelihood of returning to court.”
The most pressing concern with this program is the most integral part of the criminal justice system. The Victim! In a 20 page PowerPoint presented to the Brooklyn Bar Association, the word victim is not mentioned once. Similarly, the NYC Criminal Justice proposal for Supervised Release also fails to mention the word victim. Searches on the NYC website show drastic difference in results when searching for “criminal justice reform” as opposed to searching for “victim”, indicating where this administration’s priorities are.
There are victim service advocates employed by the District Attorney’s office, but they don’t appear at arraignments and seldom at trials. If we are to reform the criminal justice system, shouldn’t it be equal? If we enhance criminal defendants rights and needs can’t we, shouldn’t we be simultaneously enhancing victims rights, protections, and services?There should be a victim service advocate present at arraignment to speak on behalf of the victim. The judge should hear from the District Attorney or the Victim Service Advocate (since the Supervised Release staff is allowed to speak on record if necessary) and hear of the amount of victimization caused by the perpetrator. Who is the perpetrator? Until now, this article calls them “clients” but that is the word of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, not mine. They are criminals and perpetrators; I know, “innocent until proven guilty”, but the victim is always, only just innocent; they don’t have to be proven anything.
When someone implements this key idea into reality, I will gladly interview to be the Director, since the listing below shows that the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice makes $208,000 annually.
Now let’s discuss exactly what Supervised Release entails. The purpose of the program is to not unduly punish poor defendants where low bail would be set to minimize city government prison costs. “Less violent, lower risk” criminals will be afforded the opportunity to be out rather than incarcerated during the pendency of their case. As the MOCJ PowerPoint shows, the most intensive level of supervision requires the “client”, perpetrator, defendant; to check in once in person and once via phone each week. That does not and will not prevent re-offending or failing to appear for court. The power point also shows that the program will be offered to misdemeanor arrestees and non-violent felony offenders. This program WILL be offered to “DV defendants after additional protocols are established.” The creator of this PowerPoint wasn’t even brave enough to spell out domestic violence. Yes, Domestic Violence defendants will be released into Supervised Release. How are victim’s rights or domestic violence victim advocates allowing this? Or were they consulted?
As the above illustration shows, 10 % of the completed program cases were “Unsuccessful” and 2.6 % were “other termination”. The website explains further that 105 of the 728 were unsuccessful, which means they either re-offended or failed to appear for court. I am sure that their second (or higher) victim wishes the criminal was still incarcerated on the first arrest. Twenty-two of the 728 (2.6%) were terminated for other reasons such as an immigration hold, a parole hold or incarceration imposed on a previous case.
The chart below shows the reasons that 10% of the Queens cases resulted in an unsuccessful exit from the program.
The chart below shows the reasons that 2.6% of the Queens cases resulted in an termination for other reason from the program.
A newer PowerPoint that details the rates of the Queens, Manhattan, and Brooklyn programs states that “roughly 85% of these clients completed the program successfully.”
“The tens of thousands of young men of color and others detained at Riker’s Island prior to sentencing should not have to be separated from their loved ones for months simply for being poor,” said Council Member Daniel Dromm
This quote is offensive for two reasons. The first is obvious — is the Councilman concerned about the poor, young men who aren’t of color? And the second is that all of these young men (and women) are separated from their families due to the crime they chose to commit.
This citywide initiative is a slap in the face to the work of the prosecutorial side of the criminal justice system and a re-victimization to victims of crime. There are no long term studies to address effectiveness, but the message from our city leaders is clear about whose rights are most important now.
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