The New York City Department of Corrections (DOC) has announced plans to cut $17 million in funding for contracted community-based providers in favor of in-house services. Advocates and some city council members say the move will jeopardize crucial reentry programs for individuals incarcerated in facilities on Rikers Island and other NYC jails.
The Fortune Society released a statement last week claiming their leadership was blindsided by the DOC’s plan to cut their programming.
The Fortune Society is one of five community-based providers that have been working with New York City Jails including The Osbourne Society, SEO Family of Services, Green Hope Services for Women and Fedcap Rehabilitation Services. All five could be affected by projected budget cuts to Rikers and other jails that, if confirmed, would take effect after June 30, the start of the next fiscal year.
“The Department will assume the responsibilities previously carried out by contracted providers, and continues to offer dozens of additional programs to people in custody, including educational programming, fine/performing arts, and other enrichment activities,” said Frank Dwye, a Department of Corrections spokesperson in a statement released to The Crime Report.
“It’s a pipe dream,” said Ronald Day, vice president of programs and research at The Fortune Society, regarding the DOC’s announcement that they would try and replace their services with in-house programming, Janon Fisher and Graham Rayman report for the New York Daily News.
“They have not built up the capacity to do this or the trust that you need to do this on a daily basis,” Day said. The Fortune Society has been working in New York jails for over 50 years.
“Part of why people participate in programming at all is because it isn’t run by corrections officers. It’s run by programs that are credible messengers in the city of New York,” Megan French-Marcelin, The Senior Director of New York State Policy at the Legal Action Center told The Crime Report.
“I think it’s an incredibly short-sighted approach to programming,” French-Marcelin said.
The Legal Action Center is the coordinating body behind the Expanding and Reimagining New York’s Alternative to Incarceration and Reentry Programming coalition (New York’s ATI/Reentry Coalition). The coalition includes a number of direct service and advocacy organizations, including two of the providers whose work in New York City jails may come to a halt: the Fortune Society and the Osborne Association.
The coalition has raised concerns about the DOC’s ability to offer the same quality of evidence-based services to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. While calling for the restoration of funding in a recent press release, the Coalition argued that DOC lacks the expertise and capacity to provide rehabilitation and mental health services effectively.
Although the DOC reports just a 30 percent average attendance of vendor programs like those offered by Osborne and the Fortune Society, making $17 million a high cost for a program with low usage by people in custody, French-Marcelin says there is more at play.
Mayor Eric Adams last month mandated city agencies to cut their budgets by 4 percent for the next fiscal year in response in large part to what he described as budget strains from the ongoing migrant crisis.
“DOC’s budget is $2.67 billion dollars. So when you say $17 million is where we need these budget cuts while more than $880 million are there for fringe benefits, I find that just outrageous,” said French-Marcelin.
In March, the Vera Institute of Justice calculated that personnel costs represent 88.5 percent of the department’s 2024 budget, and blamed the DOC’s high budget on “severe overstaffing.” Vera’s report compared the New York Department of Corrections’ staffing ratio. Per the New York City Comptroller, the department counts 1,500 more corrections officers than people in detention, compared to Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that place the count of corrections officers at the average local jail at one-third the size of its jail population.
On the state level, Governor Kathy Hochul’s 2024 budget proposed doubling the state’s investments in alternatives to incarceration (ATI) and tripling investments in reentry services, a move that received praise from New York’s ATI/Reentry Coalition.
The increased funding could significantly reduce the number of people incarcerated in the state. The New York City Council has also budgeted for ATI in its proposed budget.
Hochul’s budget includes more than $30 million for alternatives to incarceration, a large chunk of that going to the expansion of supervised release programs which currently applies to all types of charges across the city with judges often less likely to grant supervised release for gun charges and other violent felonies, according to French-Marcelin.
“The lack of adequate funding for community-based providers has hindered their [providers] ability to provide comprehensive wraparound care and supervision for individuals with higher needs,” French-Marcelin said.
Last Friday, the New York City Committee on Criminal Justice held an over 6-hour session of budget hearings with the committees on Finance, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Public Housing.
Video of the hearing is available on the city council website.
City Comptroller Brad Lander called the proposed cuts to post-incarceration programs, along with other proposed cuts by the administration to rental assistance, meals for seniors and the City University of New York “a strategic misstep,” and called on city leaders focus instead of savings through attrition and efficiencies.
The New York City Council will now work through negotiations with New York Mayor Eric Adams’ office to develop an agreed upon, Adopted Budget, by July 1.
