A 30-year-old father of three who worked full-time and served as his family’s primary caretaker was arrested. Before his arrest, he struggled with an untreated mental illness that affected his decisions. Then, he stood in a Westchester courtroom faced with the possibility of years in prison.
Prison would cost his children their father’s presence and cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars — all while exacerbating his psychiatric condition. But instead of incarceration, the court imposed a community-based sentence. With mental health services in place, he continued to raise his children and kept his job while navigating his court involvement.
Outcomes like this are possible because defendants in Westchester can benefit from Court Advocacy Services. This program, run by the nonprofit Osborne Association and funded by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, provides indigent individuals and their attorneys with a variety of services that support alternatives to incarceration and lesser incarcerative sentences. In 2023, Osborne expanded CAS into Westchester and, with additional funding, can widen our impact and serve more clients.
How Court Advocacy Services makes a difference
I have spent over 10 years working in mitigation and diversion for Osborne. I was drawn to this line of work because I have seen firsthand the disparities in our criminal justice system through my own encounter with it when a family member was incarcerated. Today, I serve as the program coordinator of CAS in Westchester County, partnering with defense attorneys and courts to design rehabilitative and community-based solutions. I believe in this model because I have seen what happens when judges are given meaningful information about a client beyond what’s in the arrest paperwork and real options for treatment in the community before making decisions that can have ripple effects for individuals and their families.
Our mitigation specialists conduct comprehensive assessments and in-depth interviews, acquiring relevant records, to prepare a comprehensive court report. Each report, at the pre-pleading or pre-sentence stage of the case, humanizes our client beyond their criminal charge. We develop detailed and comprehensive individualized service plans, which may include referrals for substance use treatment, mental health care, housing support, education, or employment programming. Judges receive not only a request to temper justice with leniency, but also a roadmap for accountability and stability.
The impact of CAS’s Westchester services since 2023 highlights the importance of mitigation and defense-based advocacy. Since opening our White Plains office, we have conducted 195 client intakes, made more than 1,000 case management contacts with court staff, community treatment providers and stakeholders, and achieved non-incarcerative or lesser-incarcerative sentences in more than 93 percent of cases. Behind those numbers are neighbors striving to support their families and contribute to their communities.
Last year alone, CAS programs across New York State conducted more than 800 client intakes, most involving felony cases, and achieved successful outcomes in nearly 90% of cases. As many as 98% of participants met all court conditions. CAS involvement in client cases prevented more than 1,600 years of incarceration and generated an estimated $192 million in taxpayer savings.
Why this work is urgent in Westchester
The need for this work in Westchester is an urgent matter. In 2023, nearly 80% of arrests in the county involved Black and Hispanic residents, though those communities make up less than half of the population. These disparities appear in courtrooms every day, and mitigation services in Westchester need more support and funding to address them. CAS helps fill that gap with bilingual staff who work closely with assigned counsel attorneys, many of whom do not have access to the services of mitigation specialists.
In a sign of positive progress, our statewide team will soon be enhanced with the addition of trauma-informed care specialists to deliver therapeutic services to high-needs clients. But here in Westchester, the CAS program currently has only two staff members: me and one mitigation specialist. And as demand grows, waitlists increase and court reports take longer to produce. People who could remain in the community and participate in treatment are at risk of incarceration simply because the system lacks the capacity to present timely, thorough information to the court.
It does not have to be this way. Allocating just $200,000 in the state budget would allow us to expand our staff and strengthen case management services. This modest investment would increase capacity, reduce waitlists and ensure courts have the information they need before making life-altering decisions — like those that brought the father of three back to his family.
Since CAS was launched in New York City in 1985, it has saved tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and prevented tens of thousands of years of incarceration. It also previously received state support because policymakers recognized that giving courts better information leads to better outcomes.
The question now is whether the state will continue investing in what works. Westchester residents deserve a justice system that recognizes the cost of incarceration to all of us.
Angee Cortorreal serves as program coordinator for Osborne Association’s Court Advocacy Services in Westchester.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: We can reduce incarceration in NY. This program can help | Opinion
Reporting by Angeeluz Cortorreal, Special to the USA TODAY Network / NorthJersey.com
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
