Housing provides a springboard for success and a crucial foundation for individual and family well-being. Improving access to stable, affordable, and quality housing substantially increases the likelihood that a person leaving prison or jail will be able to connect with new or existing family support, find and retain employment, and build supportive relationships. This, in turn, strengthens our communities.

New York City is making a dangerous and counterproductive mistake in using “gang suppression” techniques to manage the problems of youth violence. Gang suppression policies wrongly assume that deterrence and incapacitation are the only ways to reduce violence. 

This document contains a blueprint for how New York City can and must end solitary confinement in all its forms throughout its jails. This blueprint reflects the experiences and expertise of people who have endured solitary, family members of people incarcerated, mental health, legal, and human rights experts, and other members of the Jails Action Coalition and the #HALTsolitary campaign.

The Less isMore: Community Supervision Revocation Reform Act would fix this problem. Developed by people on parole, people currently incarcerated, family members, Katal, Unchained, Justice Lab at Columbia, Legal Aid, and more, the bill is sponsored by Sen. Brian Benjamin (S.1343C) and Assm. Walter Mosley (A.5493B).

The city’s jail population has been steadily declining for the past 20 years. As of last month, just more than 7,000 people were detained in NYC jails on any given day. We must address two central questions immediately: First, once Rikers is closed, what will the City’s maximum detention capacity be? Second, what will the City do with people who are detained: Where will they be held and, crucially, in what kind of conditions?