For some CASES’ employees, the courthouse is their everyday workplace. CASES’ 36-member Court Operations team works from courthouse offices in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Our Court Operations staff are often the first CASES representative our participants encounter—typically at especially high-stakes moments: arraignment and/or disposition hearings that determine if an individual will be sent […]
New York City’s Rikers Island correctional facility currently houses more than 9,000 people every day, including young people age 16-17 tried as adults and thousands of men and women with mental illness.
Many of these people have become involved in the criminal justice system as the result of factors including poverty, low education levels, lack of employment opportunities, homelessness, untreated mental illness, and addiction. Once involved in the criminal justice system these individuals face significant challenges if they are to overcome the experience of incarceration, the consequences of a criminal record, and the disruption of community networks and—for young people—of the traditional course of youth development.