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Research

Community Supervision as a Jail Reduction Strategy

Feb 24, 2026

Overview

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.