The Will to Decarcerate: COVID-19 and NYC’s Early Release Program
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York City helped get hundreds of people out of life-threatening conditions in city jails and into community-based supervision.
The initiative, called the Early Release Program, was rooted in partnership between the city and local nonprofit agencies. Within a month of implementation, the program had helped to shrink the city’s jail population to historic lows amid a serious public health crisis.
Our new report, based on a two-year outcome analysis, found that these reductions to the jail population came with no increased risk to public safety—making the Early Release Program a promising case study for longer-term decarceration efforts.