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 The wonderful thing about well-structured and well-run alternative-to-incarceration programs is that they make so much sense. The potentially life-saving impact for program participants and the enormous financial savings to society are patently obvious.
CASES – the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services – is a perfect case in point.
Established in 1989, CASES began as a combination of two innovative programs piloted and then spun off by the Vera Institute of Justice. The Court Employment Project, launched in 1967, was the nation’s first alternative to incarceration program for young adults. The Community Service Sentencing Project, established in 1979, broke new ground by using community service as a sentencing option for adult misdemeanants.
Together, these initiatives have served as the foundation for CASES’ two main areas of programming -- Adult Behavioral Health and Youth and Education – which together now serve more than 4,000 clients and generate millions in savings for New York City and State governments annually.
“In both the short and long run, we are saving money for government and the taxpayer,” says Joel Copperman who was named CASES’first Executive Director in 1990 and has led the agency every since. “All of our programs are substantially cheaper than jail and prison.”
In fact, CASES estimates that one day of its services costs, on average, just $49. That comes to less than half the daily cost of state prison ($101), one-quarter the cost of jail ($199) and a mere 7% of the daily price for juvenile detention ($715).
“It is hard to imagine services for this population that is less expensive than ours,” says Copperman.
Yet the savings to society go far beyond a day-to-day comparison of costs. By diverting court-involved youth and adults out of jails, prisons and institutional placements, CASES significantly lowers recidivism rates, thereby reducing future service demands and expenditures for police, the courts, correctional facilities and other public services.
Studies have shown that re-arrest rates for participants in certain CASES programs are less than half the national average – 20% versus 47% for the Nathaniel ACT adult mental health program and 17% versus 47% for the Court Employment Project. The Transitional Case Management Program, which also serves adult offenders with serious mental health issues, saw a 32% reduction in the average number of arrests for all participants that enrolled in the program and received at least one case management session.
Youth and Education
CASES’ menu of services for court-involved youth all grow out of the pioneering Court Employment Project (CEP) originally launched by Vera in 1967. CEP is designed to give judges sentencing options other than prison or probation for teens who commit crimes. Today, CEP annually serves 350 youth aged 16-19 who are facing felony charges in New York City.
“We have staff in the courts who work to identify young people for whom our programs are both appropriate and suitable,” says Copperman. It is a pair of criteria that CASES applies in one form or another for all its programs.
“Appropriate” means that they are likely to get a jail or prison sentence if convicted. “We are a true Alternative-to-Incarceration program,” explains Copperman. “We don’t want to ‘widen the net’ by providing services to someone who would not otherwise be going to jail or prison.” Together with the NYC Criminal Justice Agency, CASES developed a model based on criteria that predict those defendants likely to be doing jail or prison time if convicted. Factors include whether the defendant is currently in detention, has a pending case or a previous conviction.
“Suitable” means that the defendant is likely to benefit from CASES’ services. “We talk to the defendant and their attorney,” says Copperman. “We want to make sure the people we serve are interested in receiving our services and that we can help them.” He notes, for example, that CASES is not a licensed drug treatment program and, therefore, is not well equipped to handle youth cases where substance abuse is the primary underlying issue. Nor is it a licensed by the Office of Mental Health (OMH) to provide mental health treatment for juveniles. “That is not to say that many of our clients do not have substance abuse or mental health issues. They do. It’s just that those aren’t their primary issues,” explains Copperman.
“We interview them and try to determine whether they can reasonably expect to complete the six month program,” says Joseph McLaughlin, Director of Youth Programs. “We look to see if they have the motivation as well as a stable place to live and supports in the community.”
Admission into the program requires consensus approval by prosecutors, the defendants and their attorneys, judges and CASES. “We work closely with the District Attorney. Sometimes defense attorneys may not want to accept the program because they believe they will be able to get probation, rather than jail,” says Copperman. “In those cases, we just go away. We don’t want to get people involved in a level of services where, if they fail, they are likely to wind up in jail when they would not have otherwise.”
CEP is a six-month program that combines a strengths-based, youth development focus with accountability to the courts. Upon enrollment, participants undergo several assessments to identify educational and clinical needs. Case coordinators then work with participants to develop personal goals and access the services which include:
• Orientation classes on legal rights and responsibilities, health, education and substance use;
• Individualized case management and service planning;
• GED and pre-GED instruction and testing;
• Assistance with public school enrollment and engagement, including school visits;
• Next Steps college prep class, college visits and application assistance;
• Substance abuse education and referrals;
• Mental health screening and counseling;
• Employment readiness training;
• Subsidized internships and job placement assistance;
• Recreational and fitness activities;
• Art classes and art therapy groups.
“We have an extensive array of programs on site and we have relationships with programs all over the city,” says McLaughlin.
CEP staff monitor program attendance and compliance with their court mandate, providing regular written reports to the judge with information on their progress.
Participants who successfully complete CEP avoid jail/prison time. Typically, they will be sentenced to five years of probation. Those eligible for Youthful Offender (YO) status receive this designation, which effectively seals the felony conviction record.
CEP works! Approximately 60% of participants successfully complete the program and remain in their communities; 90% percent of CEP graduates are connected to schools, job training, community-based counseling and other necessary supports at program exit; and, most important, 85% of CEP graduates have no further criminal conviction within two years of graduation.
Choices Alternative to Detention
CASES also operates a program for young people facing juvenile detention while their cases are pending in Family Court. The program is designed to avoid the disruption that arises when young people are taken out of their school and placed in detention – and avoid longer-term placement in state run juvenile justice facilities when their case is adjudicated.
“All the data show that if you already are in detention, you are more likely to stay in,” says Copperman. “We are working at the front end and offer after-school activities and community supervision.
Education
“We have done a lot of work over the years on the issue of education, looking at the challenges that court-involved youth face in accessing education here in the City,” says McLaughlin. “In the Court Employment Project we have lots of over-age and under-credited young people. If they are still young enough to go back into school, we try to get them into a mainstream high school. But, if they are 18 years old and only have six credits, we have classes on site to prepare them for a GED. Wherever they are on the continuum, we want to move them further along with a focus on getting the appropriate credentials, either a high school diploma or GED.”
While critically important, a GED or even a high school diploma is no guarantee of future success in today’s highly competitive job market. “A lot of kids want to take their degree or their GED and do something with it, but they don’t know how,” says McLaughlin. In response, CASES developed its Next Steps program to help young people understand and access the types of higher education options available to them.
In April, Next Steps served as the basis for a three-year grant which CASES received as part of the National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC) Post Secondary Success Initiative. The project is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and the Open Society Foundations to increase the number of low-income youth and young adults to attain a postsecondary credential.
Under this grant, CASES is working in partnership with the City University of New York’s Black Male Initiative to help 20 court-involved students enroll and succeed in college annually. Services include mentoring, counseling, academic advisement, supplemental instruction prior to college enrollment, monthly support meetings for college enrollees, re-engagement supports for those at risk of dropping out and transportation stipends.
For young people at the other end of the spectrum, CASES has begun working with the Youth Development Institute (YDI) to improve its onsite education classes. The projects uses an evidenced-based blended literacy program shown to be effective in helping kids with low standardized test scores improve their reading comprehension. The YDI model combines literacy education with case management and other support services. “We’re really excited about this because over the years, we’ve found that pre-GED level kids historically didn’t do as well in the program,” says McLaughlin. “This gives us something that can help them along the continuum towards a GED or high school diploma.”
Career Exploration
Giving court-involved young people hope for future careers that offer real opportunities for advancement and reasonable wages is essential to the CASES service model. Founded in 1997, Career Exploration is designed to excite young people about the idea of work and expand their perception of the careers that are open to them. The 14-week program includes employment readiness skills training and a 10-week internship.
“The young people receive a stipend,” says Copperman. “It drives home the point that you get paid to work in this world. We raise the money for that. The employer doesn’t pay.”
The program has grown to serve 120 participants annually. In 2010, a one-year grant from the NYS Department of Labor allowed CASES to expand the services available to alumni, including offering the National Work Readiness Credential (NWRC) exam at CASES, the first national standards-based test of readiness for entry-level employment.
In 2000, the Career Exploration Project won a prestigious National Juvenile Justice Award and, in 2003, received the National Youth Employment Coalition’s Promising and Effective Practices Network (PEPNet) Award for the second time.
More recently, CASES has begun exploring new employment-related programming, including work with Boston-based Jobs for the Future on how best to identify future career opportunities in less traditional industry sectors.
Adult Behavioral Health
CASES offers a series of equally innovative ATI programs for adults, each one focused on avoiding unnecessary and potentially counterproductive incarceration for individuals who are better served in community programs.
The Nathaniel Project was launched in 2000 as New York City’s first ATI program for felony offenders with serious and persistent mental illness. It is named for a homeless man whose untreated mental illness led him to cycle in and out of the criminal justice system for 15 years.
Impetus for the project came from a study showing the high incidence of mental illness among inmates on Rikers Island. At the same time, however, there were no community-based alternatives specifically designed to serve those with Serious and Persistent Mental Illness (SPMI). “In fact, a mental health diagnosis almost automatically led to a denial of services by community based ATI providers,” says Ann-Marie Louison, who came to CASES to launch the Nathaniel Project and now heads all Adult Behavioral Health programs.
The Nathaniel Project started small with only limited funding from the City Council and some foundations. “Our contract was to serve eight people in our first year,” says Louison. Nevertheless, the program demonstrated an ability to work successfully with mentally-ill offenders.
In 2003, however, the program took a significant leap forward when it was funded by the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) to operate as an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team. “We were able to move beyond just providing case management and begin providing direct services,” says Louison.
“ACT is an evidence-based program that provides services that are typically delivered in a facility or a clinic and takes them out into the community,” says Copperman. “There is a team of clinicians -- a psychiatrist, nurses, social workers and peers – who go out into the community. We see people in their homes.”
The ACT license allowed CASES to receive Medicaid funding for its services. “We have a licensed capacity to serve 68 people at any point in time,” says Louison. The criminal justice involvement sets CASES ACT team apart. Unlike other OMH-licensed ACT Teams, which are assigned cases through a single City-wide point of access, CASES takes referrals directly from the court house. “We are looking for people charged with felonies who have a history of psychiatric hospitalizations and other signs of serious mental illness,” says Louison. This programmatic orientation requires a specific type of clinician. “Half of our clients have been recently convicted of a violent crime,” she explains. “People who come to work here don’t think that is odd.”
The Nathaniel ACT program has been widely recognized for its innovation, winning three national awards from the American Psychiatric Association, the American Probation and Parole Association and the National Association of County Behavioral Health Directors.
Transitional Case Management
In 2004, CASES expanded its focus on offenders with mental health issues when it began providing short-term ATI programming for lower level offenders with mental health issues who were charged with misdemeanor offenses in Manhattan Criminal Court. Rather than divert people into a lengthy period of court supervision, the EXIT program, as it was then called, featured a required three-hour Mandated Treatment Assessment Session (MTAS) to identify the participant’s immediate needs for food, shelter and clothing, as well as longer- and medium-term goals for non-mandated services. Ultimately, 69% of program participants chose to engage in voluntary services with a corresponding reduction in recidivism.
Based on this success, CASES expanded the program into its current Transitional Case Management model in 2007. The program targets individuals with repeat misdemeanor offenses who are at risk of short jail sentences and also have a serious mental illness.
“When you are being processed for a misdemeanor, there is a very brief window for us to identify individuals appropriate for the program,” says Louison. CASES’ court-based staff begin by identifying individuals likely to be jail-bound. “If someone has three or more convictions, that person is at risk of a jail sentence,” she explains. Then comes a brief mental health screening tool. “There are eight questions, five about symptoms and three about prior utilization of mental health services. It takes about two minutes to administer,” says Louison.
TCM provides direct assistance to participants to secure community resources with the aim of achieving improvements in psychiatric symptoms, treating substance abuse, and teaching life skills necessary for community stability and crime-free lifestyles.
Day Custody Program
CASES’ Day Custody Program (DCP), launched in 2005, targets repeat offenders who are charged in Manhattan Criminal Court with misdemeanors. Rather than receiving a short jail sentence on Rikers Island, DCP is a three-day sanction during which participants report to a secure DOC facility each day where they perform community service and receive substance abuse education, counseling, and referrals to treatment providers. The program thereby offers an alternative that saves taxpayers the costs of incarceration while providing participants with services that address the underlying causes of their criminal activity.
Parole Restoration
Another interesting – and significantly cost effective – initiative is the Parole Restoration Project (PRP). Technical parole violators — parolees who have not been re-arrested but rather have violated the terms of their parole by missing an appointment, failing a drug test, etc. – historically spent an average of over 100 days on Rikers Island. Launched in 2001, PRP helps these otherwise prison-bound individuals to regain their parole status by ensuring appropriate treatment placement, follow-up and compliance. Efforts by the State, the City and the work of PRP have brought the average length of stay for PRP clients down to 41 days thereby saving significant tax payer dollars.
“We take them to residential programs in the community,” says Louison. “Our community staff monitors how they are doing for a period of time. We serve between 400 and 500 people every year.”
Partnerships with Government
Much of CASES’ success has only been possible because State and City officials have shared the commitment to reducing unnecessary incarcerations wherever possible, says Copperman. It is a commitment that grows out of the realization that ATI programs work. They save taxpayer dollars in the short run while reducing recidivism in the long-run. And, these savings come without added risk to the public.
“Our programs don’t compromise public safety,” says Louison. “I live in the community too. I want to be safe and I want my kids to be safe.”
“New York City and New York State should be the envy of the nation,” says Copperman. “Crime is way down, as are prison and jail populations. CASES and the other ATI programs across the City have made an important contribution to this good news story.”
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