One session, three sessions, or five, taking up to six months to complete. Those are the mandates available through NewSTART, a Manhattan alternative to incarceration.
The name stands for Short-Term Alternatives and Referral to Treatment, and the idea is to reduce recidivism by connecting convicts to cognitive-behavioral interventions, employment assistance and community service instead of sending them to jail.
The nonprofit CASES designed NewSTART with the mayor’s criminal-justice office and the Manhattan District Attorney, launching it in 2017 to replace jail stays typically lasting five to fifteen days. The “alternative” was to use the court appearance to connect defendants to services, which could continue voluntarily after the brief mandate ended. CASES explicitly placed the program within the effort to close Rikers.
What does that look like? In Julie Lee’s report from Manhattan night court, a man appeared after stealing three boxes of cereal and fourteen candy items from CVS. He had already missed a NewSTART session ordered in an earlier case. Judge Jeffrey Gershuny identified food insecurity and a possible substance-use disorder.
“NewSTART is very appropriate here,” said the Judge. A CASES worker followed the defendant out to arrange intake. He refused to fill out the paperwork. The CASES worker told him he was free to go, and he left.
CASES staff work in the courthouse, reviewing files, interviewing defendants, coordinating with lawyers and advocating for alternatives to jail. Repeated arrests do not put someone outside NewSTART’s intended clientele; rather, the program was purpose-built for repeat clients.
A NewSTART recruitment notice explains methods its specialists are expected to use to help participants “learn how to manage recovery from mental illness and substance use problems.” One is Wellness Recovery Action Planning, or WRAP, which has randomized research behind it. A trial offered eight weekly sessions of two and a half hours to clients, finding measured improvements in hopefulness and quality of life.
But a question gets lost in these transfers: will he repeat the crime?
The court begins with a man who keeps stealing and delivers him to a service provider working on his recovery. His mental health might improve through a program designed and tested for that purpose. But the promise that brought NewSTART into the courtroom was to reduce recidivism.