The years following the launch of the Pretrial Services Agency in 1973 and CJA in 1977 coincided with increasing crime rates across the United States. Locally, this meant ever more people spending time within the city’s jails before trial. Law enforcement-focused responses to crack cocaine use in the late 1980s dramatically accelerated jail population growth. By the time national crime rates started their historic, decades-long decline in the early 1990s, the average daily population (ADP) inside New York City Department of Correction facilities had reached nearly 22,000 people.

Increased pressure on city jails had strengthened CJA’s reputation within New York’s justice system. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, staff working in borough courts interviewed newly arrested people, telephoned references to seek confirmation of what they had learned, and generated release assessments to guide judges’ decisions about which individuals to release while their case moved toward resolution, whom to detain before trial, and when to use money bond. In 2008, CJA staff conducted interviews in more than 300,000 cases of people held for criminal court arraignment. CJA leaders were sure they could do better, however, and in 2009, city officials funded the agency to experiment with a fourth option that promised to see even more people safely released before trial: Supervised Release.

When the Queens Supervised Release (QSR) pilot project launched, it was not the first time a jurisdiction had tried to extend services to arrested people in order to reduce the use of money bail (and, for those who could not afford it, detention before trial). The federal courts, which had embraced pretrial reform almost immediately in the wake of the Manhattan Bail Project, had piloted a pretrial services project as early as 1974. Many other jurisdictions had developed similar programs, usually operating out of probation departments and functioning as an extension of law enforcement.

QSR would prove to be New York City’s first demonstrably successful attempt to reduce its jail population by facilitating the release of individuals who did not qualify for ROR. The program’s success depended on solving several key puzzles. These included selecting the right borough for the project, limiting intake to appropriate participants, and providing support that was effective.

CJA was well positioned to meet all of these challenges. “We worked closely with our research department to collect data across all five boroughs and to choose which borough would be more successful,” recalled Joann De Jesus, who helped launch the project, which she continues to lead today. “More people were likely to be detained in Queens because bail setting practices there were different,” she explained. “It’s where we thought we could effect the most change."

QSR researchers also used data to identify candidates who would be most likely to benefit from the program. Recognizing that “net widening”—admitting people who would get an ROR, absent the program—could lead to even higher rates of detention should they fail to adhere to supervision requirements, the program’s architects excluded anyone who had charges that were unlikely to result in bail. They also decided to enlist defense attorneys as “gatekeepers.”

“We would go to the defense and tell them that we had identified someone as a potential client using information from the release assessment,” De Jesus explains. Although most defense attorneys wanted their clients released on recognizance, attorneys who suspected a judge was going to assign bail would sometimes ask their clients to consider pretrial services. “A lot of times they would take it,” De Jesus recalls. “First, you never knew how much bail the court was going to set; and second, if they knew they needed housing, or had employment concerns, or substance use concerns, or things going on with the family, they thought working with a social worker was a way to leverage additional services.”

CJA researchers also identified criteria to exclude individuals who presented too much risk. Anyone with more than six misdemeanors, for example, or who had a high likelihood of not appearing in court based on CJA’s interview process was ineligible for the program. Participation in QSR began with an intake process to identify clients’ needs and to surface opportunities for referring them to outside services, such as support for mental health, substance use, and housing challenges. Although program staff saw their mission rooted in social work rather than surveillance, they also used the intake to identify an appropriate level of supervision, ranging from occasional telephone calls to frequent in-person visits. Prior to any court appearances the program would forward a written report on the client’s participation and progress. When problems with compliance arose, program staff would appear in person with the report.

A 2013 evaluation showed QSR was succeeding at its primary goal of seeing more people safely released: Nearly 90 percent of participants completed the program, only 3 percent exited due to a failure to appear in court, and re-arrests, when they did occur, were overwhelmingly for non-felony charges. The program also revealed a startling characteristic within the medium-risk population it was serving: Nearly half of QSR participants were found to have substance use or mental health needs, or both. QSR’s intervention saw more than half of these people—who previously would have gone under or undiagnosed—voluntarily connected to community-based services to address their specific challenges.

QSR’s success quickly led to similar pilot projects in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and in 2016 New York City replicated the model across all five boroughs.
In its ongoing commitment to innovation and improving outcomes, in 2018 QSR expanded its staff to include Peer Specialists, certified practitioners who have overcome personal challenges that are common among many clients, such as mental health diagnoses, addiction, and homelessness. The peer staff have made the QSR even more effective at connecting clients to services and supports. “We find that when we can offer our clients someone to talk to who has already walked in their shoes, it can inspire hope and change,” says De Jesus. “You’re not going to get that through the corrections system.”

The city-wide Pretrial Services program was further expanded in 2019. Since 2020, when bail reform legislation was implemented across the state, the service has been available to anyone who is arrested in the city. According to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, the pilot project that CJA launched in Queens less than 15 years ago has allowed more than 50,000 people, city-wide, to be diverted from jail. “I do this work, and everyone on my team does this work, because it’s a human service,” says De Jesus. “At one of the lowest points in a person’s life, we invite them to ask, what are the challenges I’ve been facing? What are the benefits I could realize by doing things differently? Because of Supervised Release, tens of thousands of New Yorkers have had a chance to reimagine and redirect their lives with the critical support of people who really care.”

Participation in QSR began with an intake process to identify clients’ needs and to surface opportunities for referring them to outside services, such as support for mental health, substance use, and housing challenges. Although program staff saw their mission rooted in social work rather than surveillance, they also used the intake to identify an appropriate level of supervision, ranging from occasional telephone calls to frequent in-person visits. Prior to any court appearances the program would forward a written report on the client’s participation and progress. When problems with compliance arose, program staff would appear in person with the report.

QSR’s success quickly led to similar pilot projects in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and in 2016 New York City replicated the model across all five boroughs.

In its ongoing commitment to innovation and improving outcomes, in 2018 QSR expanded its staff to include Peer Specialists, certified practitioners who have overcome personal challenges that are common among many clients, such as mental health diagnoses, addiction, and homelessness. The peer staff have made the QSR even more effective at connecting clients to services and supports. “We find that when we can offer our clients someone to talk to who has already walked in their shoes, it can inspire hope and change,” says De Jesus. “You’re not going to get that through the corrections system.”

“I do this work, and everyone on my team does this work, because it’s a human service,” says De Jesus. “At one of the lowest points in a person’s life, we invite them to ask, what are the challenges I’ve been facing? What are the benefits I could realize by doing things differently? Because of Supervised Release, tens of thousands of New Yorkers have had a chance to reimagine and redirect their lives with the critical support of people who really care.”

CJA's Founding

Launching the Supervised Release Program in Queens

Data Insights Inform Pretrial Reform