Oversight: Improving Court Operations to Reduce the Jail Population
Deanna Logan, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice
“Our job at the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ) is to collaborate across city agencies to address some of the toughest criminal justice challenges in our great city.
We’re proud today to detail how, in tandem with our partners and Mayor Zohran Mamdani – we’re making progress on reducing the jail population on Rikers Island.
Reducing the jail population is a necessary step to close Rikers, one of the key priorities of the mayor, First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan, Criminal Justice Coordinator Justine Olderman, and Close Rikers Czar Dana Kaplan.
Achieving a reduced population will require a multi-pronged strategy. One of the key components of this strategy is working with our partners in the court system to ensure the timely resolution of criminal cases.
Maintaining a sustained population reduction will depend on an evolution of our pre-trial system so that it reliably and effectively protects the presumption of innocence, while applying a person-centered approach to our public safety challenges.
This evolution will produce a system that can resolve cases in a timely manner while simultaneously making greater use of evidence-based alternatives to detention where appropriate.
Under Mayor Mamdani’s leadership, and in collaboration with our many partners, MOCJ is working continuously to help the criminal legal system become smaller, smarter, and fairer – while creating significant improvements in safety for all New Yorkers.
These evolving processes are helping to reduce incarceration and improve outcomes for people in the criminal legal system.
We are committed to using every tool in our toolkit to achieve these goals, including continued improvements to court operations and case processing.
Key Challenges
Ensuring timely resolution of cases and reducing the pretrial detention population was not a priority of the last administration. This administration is changing course. With two dedicated positions, the administration has demonstrated its deep commitment to the effort.
As committed as we are to improving case processing, MOCJ recognizes that efficiency must not compromise fairness and the fundamental rights of individuals in the criminal legal system.
We also know from experience that to achieve true public safety, our approach must prioritize long term stability over unnecessarily punitive responses.
To help us achieve these goals, MOCJ’s work is grounded in evidence-based strategies.
MOCJ invested in a more advanced data infrastructure that will improve our ability to identify the challenges within the court system’s operations that are impacting the jail population. This data is a critical resource in helping us identify long-term solutions.
MOCJ also prioritizes open lines of communication with criminal legal system stakeholders. We meet with the defense bar and with the district attorneys on a regular basis, as well as the courts and stakeholders in each borough.
When we learn of the obstacles that prevent the criminal legal system from working effectively, we study the problem and then work together to address the issue collaboratively. As we help each of the stakeholders resolve the problems they are experiencing, cases move through the system more quickly.
With our new Criminal Justice Coordinator starting mid-July, we will have additional support for this critical communication and collaboration.
The challenges faced by the criminal legal system are not ones that are solved overnight, nor solved unilaterally. A deep understanding of the system is required to make improvements, taking into account the potential collateral consequences of any changes.
By working strategically with our partners, we are positioned to implement lasting, meaningful change to achieve Mayor Mamdani’s vision of safely reducing the jail population and closing Rikers.
Case Processing and Calendar Management
Case duration varies by borough, charge, custody status, case complexity and other individualized factors. Generally speaking, however, efficient case processing depends on reducing the amount of time between court dates and ensuring that each court date helps move the case towards resolution.
While there is more work to be done, case processing times have decreased over the past two years, and certain key subgroups have stabilized, including people held long-term and those facing murder charges.
To accelerate this downward trend, MOCJ is currently leveraging its improved data infrastructure to provide the insights that will allow us to make targeted recommendations to legal system stakeholders.
With targeted recommendations and commitment from stakeholders, we are positioned to work across the continuum to achieve case resolution times that are closer to national standards.
Court-Based Programming and Resources: ICM
Under this administration’s renewed focus on collaborative problem-solving, designed to shift the system toward sustainable change, we are also investing in additional court-based resources, including an expansion of the Intensive Case Management (ICM) strategy within the Supervised Release program.
ICM began in Manhattan and Queens and over the course of its operation, there were periods of 29% reduction in violent felony arrests as compared to similarly situated individuals not receiving the intensive services. Sustainable jail population reduction requires real court-based options that allow people to navigate their cases in community. ICM remains an expanding initiative that will continue to grow to Brooklyn in FY27.
Court-Based Programming and Resources: Project Reset
Project Reset contributes to achieving timely case resolution by reducing the number of cases in the system, freeing up court resources for the cases with detained people.
The program serves adults issued Desk Appearance Tickets for eligible non-violent misdemeanors. Following an arrest, but prior to the first court date, the prosecutor’s office refers eligible cases to a service provider that offers people the opportunity to engage in voluntary one-day programming.
Participants do not plead guilty to participate. Cases are declined prosecution for those people who successfully complete their Project Reset programming.
There is no penalty for failure to complete Project Reset; instead, the case follows the traditional prosecution process. Ninety-eight percent of participants satisfy their obligations.
For individuals who did not complete Reset programming prior to their DAT court appearance, Manhattan and the Bronx offer a second chance to complete programming on the day of their court appearance through Rapid Reset. Participants can complete one session of programming and resolve their case without ever leaving the courthouse.
Court-Based Programming and Resources: Assessments and Program Matching
Approximately 85% of people held on Rikers Island are detained pre-trial. However, approximately 70% of those people return to the community and do not serve a state prison sentence. Therefore, assessing people more quickly for alternatives to incarceration or alternatives to detention provides an avenue to truncate the time spent in custody.
As part of this effort and the Council’s advocacy, MOCJ has operationalized three new initiatives for pretrial release and ATI program matching.
In 2023 and 2025, City Council passed several bills aimed at speeding up the assessment process.
First, Local Law 75 established the jail population review program, requiring an eligibility review of everyone in jail for at least seven days for early case resolution or pretrial release.
Second, Local Law 139 established a requirement to provide a holistic needs assessment for anyone under consideration for a court-based alternative to incarceration program within six weeks of the request. Both of these local laws are now in operation through our partner the Center for Justice Innovation (CJI).
Additionally, MOCJ along with our provider partner CASES, OCA, and DANY, are currently testing a single-point assessor model to more quickly and accurately match those with open cases to appropriate ATI programs. This model is aimed at reducing unnecessary adjournments and additional assessments while increasing connectivity across various programs with court parties.
We are currently reviewing the programs to determine how these interventions can best support jail population reduction.
In addition to the systemic changes that will lead to an overall shift in the way that cases are managed in the criminal legal system, MOCJ is also working with stakeholders across the criminal legal system to improve the below factors that impact case processing and court operations, including:
- Defense Access to Clients
- Timely resolution of cases requires defense counsel to build trust, share information, and discuss trial and plea options. MOCJ is working with stakeholders and collaborating across agencies to remove barriers and improve access to Counsel for people detained on Rikers.
- Discovery
- 911 calls often represent the first reports of crimes and are important pieces of evidence that must be turned over during discovery, which is critical for counsel to properly assess cases and advise their clients. MOCJ is currently working with stakeholders to implement the following solutions to expedite 911 requests:
- Coordination between NYPD and the various district attorney’s offices to cancel requests that are no longer needed, due to the resolution of cases;
- 911 calls often represent the first reports of crimes and are important pieces of evidence that must be turned over during discovery, which is critical for counsel to properly assess cases and advise their clients. MOCJ is currently working with stakeholders to implement the following solutions to expedite 911 requests:
- Securing additional personnel assignments to the Tapes and Records Unit at NYPD.
- Court Production
- Conflicting court dates lead to missed appearances which create delays in case processing. MOCJ is working with our partners at OCA to recognize and proactively resolve upcoming conflicting court dates.
These challenges are just a few of the ways that MOCJ is working to support timely case resolution on a daily basis.
We, along with our stakeholders in the criminal legal system, agree that court operation is a vital component of reducing the jail population. We are grateful for the Mamdani administration’s renewed focus on collaborative problem solving to shift the system toward sustainable change.
The Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice is proud of our collaborations across city agencies and in tandem with city partners. We are even more optimistic about this work now that Mayor Mamdani and First Deputy Mayor Fuleihan finalized our public safety team with the hiring of Dana Kaplan, the Close Rikers Czar and Justine Olderman, the Criminal Justice Coordinator. We look forward to realizing these changes together – because a smaller, smarter, and fairer criminal justice system will pave the way to closing Rikers and to fostering the kind of safety we all want for ourselves, our families, and our communities.”