When the City recognized the need to get people off Rikers Island to curb the spread of COVID-19, it turned to three organizations to help. Since 2016, CASES, the Center for Court Innovation, and the Criminal Justice Agency have provided Supervised Release services for the City, helping people remain in the community while awaiting trial as opposed to be detained at Rikers Island. Within days, our organizations worked with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and NYC Department of Correction to adapt the program model to help get people off Rikers—at a time when the infection rate was five times that of the rate citywide—while supporting their safe reentry and thus maintaining public safety in the community. 

“It was an amazing, high-pressure experience. We were really understanding the gravity of what we were being asked to embark on. It really, for me, highlighted the collaboration in a lot of the ways the three organizations who do supervised release have been able to work so well together.” 

Giles Malieckal, CASES’ Senior Director of Pretrial Services, joins Aubrey Fox of the Criminal Justice Agency and Adam Mansky of the Center for Court Innovation on the New Thinking podcast to discuss how the three organizations came together to facilitate the safe release of more than 300 people from the dangerous conditions on Riker’s Island. Listen to a recording here.

For more information on the 6-A Early Release program and how it’s faring so far, please see these reports.