NYC's supervised release program swelled after bail reform. Now it may be overwhelmed.

A city program aimed at helping people accused of crimes stay out of jail, show up for court and avoid rearrest has exploded in recent years in the wake of bail reform. Now, social workers who operate the little-known supervised release program say they don’t have the resources to support the influx of people, many of whom are facing violent felony charges. And that’s leaving the program at a crossroads.

Supervised release, which is now run through the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, began as a pilot program 14 years ago to connect low-level offenders with social services, helping them to show up for their court hearings and avoid rearrest. But after New York state’s bail reform laws went into effect in 2020, the program grew dramatically and opened up to anyone regardless of criminal charges.

Today, people who are arrested are more than four times more likely to be released through supervised release compared to cash bail, according to data from the nonprofit Criminal Justice Agency. And supervised release no longer focuses on low-level offenders; the data shows most people in the program have felony charges, and more than a third are accused of violent felonies.

City officials are now considering how the program could expand to better assist those with violent charges who are repeatedly arrested, but not all legal experts believe expanding this approach to public safety is the right path.

Under supervised release, instead of being sent to Rikers Island jails, people charged with crimes are released until their court dates and supervised by social workers at city-contracted nonprofits, where they can access services for housing, substance abuse and mental health. But while supervised release has been successful in ensuring that people charged with low-level offenses return to court and avoid rearrest, it has not done the same for those who repeatedly get arrested on charges involving violence.

History of supervised release in NYC

Supervised release, which is run by nonprofit agencies that contract with the city and staffed by social workers, started as a pilot program in Queens in 2009 and began citywide in 2016. By 2019, city officials said it was already responsible for a 38% decline in Rikers Island's detainee population.

And as of April, 1 in every 5 people released pretrial — more than 8,500 people — are free on supervised release, according to New York City Criminal Justice Agency data. That’s double the caseload from two years earlier.

In all, more than 50,000 people have so far been diverted from Rikers Island and city jails because of supervised release, according to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.

Instead of judges telling people who are arrested to go home and return for a court date — or locking them up at Rikers Island, which has long been mired in a humanitarian crisis — people are assigned to this program at arraignments. There’s no drug test and no ankle bracelet; instead, they come to one of four nonprofit agencies’ offices for a 45-minute assessment to talk about their needs, such as employment, education and treatment. They work with social workers and peer specialists, who have experience with the criminal justice and mental health systems, to get connected to services, which include everything from art therapy groups, anger management programs, substance abuse counseling and housing assistance.

The only requirement is that people assigned to this program check in with case managers at least once a month and as often as once a week, either in person or on the phone. Failure to do so can result in the judge ordering the person detained. Some participants are even given cellphones so they can call their case managers.

They’re also offered baggies of snack bars and water, knapsacks of hygiene products, and formal clothes for job interviews.

“Sometimes just even navigating a system — the mental health system, a substance use system, access to services, getting a New York state non-driver license ID, things like that — people either don't know how to navigate on their own, or need support or need funding to help them do these things,” said Joann De Jesus, who oversees Queens’ supervised release program for the Criminal Justice Agency.

“And they learn when they come here that these are social workers and case managers and people that are really, genuinely interested in supporting whatever their needs are … They're like, ‘Oh, you really do wanna help me. You, you really are listening to me.’”

The alternative for them might be a stay at Rikers Island, but “if they're identifying a mental health need or a substance use need, locking someone up in Rikers Island is not gonna resolve that need,” De Jesus said.

A client finds the support he needs

Brian, a Criminal Justice Agency client who asked that only his first name be used because of his pending charges, meets with his social worker in Queens weekly. Brian uses heroin daily, and is awaiting court hearings on drug possession charges. But his case manager is linking him to a detox program in Queens, which he said he otherwise wouldn’t have known about, and she’s also helping him get set up with food stamps.

Brian said his case manager seems mission-driven. “She does this because, you know the saying, ‘You gotta love what you do and you don't work a day in your life,’” he said. “I feel like that's her.”

Before he left the supervised release office, Brian grabbed a MetroCard to cover his return trip for his next check-in.

Bail reform has changed supervised release

For years, supervised release was geared to people like Brian, who were charged with misdemeanors or non-violent felonies. But in 2020, bail reform went into effect and far more people charged with felonies started to be released pretrial. That’s when the city changed the rules on supervised release to accommodate the bail reform era, so anyone can be assigned to the program by a judge.

Now, more than three years later, most people in the program have felony charges, and more than a third have violent felonies. And supervised release has become overwhelmed by the influx of additional people: The Queens program has 2,029 active clients and just 46 case managers, according to the Criminal Justice Agency.

The result is social workers trying to aid those with deeper needs than the previous population — these are people with domestic violence arrests, complex mental health challenges and long histories of rearrests, according to Aubrey Fox, the Criminal Justice Agency's executive director. Those who run these programs are now hoping the city can provide more resources to supervise this population more intensely. They say that if bail reform is going to be successful in preserving public safety, then the city must figure out how to make supervised release successful for this group of people who keep getting arrested on serious charges.

Of course, that would require more money — and the city is already spending $201 million over three years on its supervised release contracts.

The ‘supervised release industrial complex’

Steve Zeidman, a former public defender and the director of the criminal defense clinic at CUNY Law, said he sees mission creep here. Supervised release began as a small program targeted to a specific group of offenders, he said, and suddenly it’s sucking up taxpayer money even though it might be just as effective, from a public safety standpoint, to release people pretrial on their own recognizance and divert its funding for social services back into the communities.

Zeidman called it the “massive supervised release industrial complex.”

“As the mayor is cutting vital essential services, it struck me as troublesome that no one is really questioning this money,” he said.

Zeidman noted that if people on supervised release miss a check-in date with their social worker, they could get in trouble with the judge, sucking them deeper into the criminal justice system. On top of that, Zeidman sees supervised release as just another criminal database that Black and Latino New Yorkers find themselves in — and maybe linked to in perpetuity — even though so many ultimately get their criminal cases dismissed.

“Of course it's much better than Rikers,” Zeidman said. “But it doesn't address the question of why do they have to even be on supervised release in the first place?”

Still, city leaders could infuse more funds into it as soon as this year, specifically to address those who are released with a history of violent felony arrests.

“There needs to be something that judges feel comfortable to do, and offers extra support and services for people who need it,” said Fox, of the Criminal Justice Agency. “It’s not just the largest pretrial program you’ve never heard of, but it’s the largest pretrial program you’ve never heard of run by social workers and peers. What a beautiful thing that is.”

Correction: This article has been corrected to accurately describe who was eligible for supervised release when the program began.