Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg BusinessWeek with Carol Messer and Tim Steneveek
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. Well, here's something I didn't know before
Speaker 1: reading the story from our next guest, Sarah Holder and
Speaker 1: Fulla kenneby their City Lab reporters here at Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: America's pre trial detention system is actually a global outlier.
Speaker 1: It's set apart by an emphasis on cash bill and
Speaker 1: the for profit infrastructure that supports it. So if you
Speaker 1: can't afford your bail, a company in the two billion
Speaker 1: dollar commercial bailbond industry will cover it for a fee.
Speaker 1: And if you don't qualify for bail bonds or can't
Speaker 1: afford them, you go to jail. You wait months or
Speaker 1: even years for a trial. Fulla and Sarah writing about
Speaker 1: the success and challenges of New York City's supervised release
Speaker 1: program and the current issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. It's the
Speaker 1: annual City's double issue. It's on newstands now, it's online
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com, slash BusinessWeek, and it's on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg terminal. Full is here in the studio. Sarah's on
Speaker 1: zoom in New York. Also here, the editor of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: BusinessWeek Joel Webber in our Bloomberg Interactive at Brokers Studio. Joel,
Speaker 1: good to have you with us. The supervised release program
Speaker 1: here in New York City. I can't really call it
Speaker 1: experimental anymore.
Speaker 2: I didn't know about it, though, did you know about it?
Speaker 1: I had heard of it, okay in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: when we voted for it, yeah, but or voted against it,
Speaker 1: depending on how people voted. But I didn't know about
Speaker 1: the successes and failures of it.
Speaker 2: So one of the things as we were kind of
Speaker 2: putting together the city's issue, we really wanted to take
Speaker 2: like this, look at where cities are three plus years
Speaker 2: after the pandemic, and this idea from Fuller and Sarah
Speaker 2: I thought was a really interesting way to talk about
Speaker 2: criminal justice and this experiment that's happened in New York
Speaker 2: that I think has been worthy of more national attention
Speaker 2: than it's perhaps received. And as you mentioned, us huge
Speaker 2: outlier in terms of incarceration numbers. What the program has
Speaker 2: shown is this interesting success already. And part of this
Speaker 2: is the burden that is put on people who are
Speaker 2: and it's until proven guilty, but they cannot be on
Speaker 2: the street unless they have money for bail, and this
Speaker 2: has really challenged that assumption and fulla talk to us
Speaker 2: about who are the instrumental people who are helping make
Speaker 2: this pilot a.
Speaker 3: Thing, Thanks Joel, And so I guess, first of all,
Speaker 3: the jail system in the US, folks have been it's
Speaker 3: greatly expanded since the seventies, and so there are four
Speaker 3: times as many people behind bars pre trial.
Speaker 2: On four times four times and pre trial.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pre trial so you know, accused but not convictive
Speaker 3: of any crime than there were in the seventies. And
Speaker 3: so these systems have sprung up in jurisdictions across the US,
Speaker 3: New York having one of the most expansive ones to
Speaker 3: address this ballooning population of folks that are being held
Speaker 3: before they've been convicted. And so here in New York
Speaker 3: we have this supervised release program and so each borough
Speaker 3: has a provider, well, Brooklyn shares Brooklyn and Staten Island
Speaker 3: share a provider. But basically the intend is to divert
Speaker 3: people from jail and keep them from having to pay
Speaker 3: bail that in many cases they can afford, and instead
Speaker 3: give them programming, give them you know, job interview, help
Speaker 3: give them access to housing, give them access to food
Speaker 3: and give them access to things that they need to
Speaker 3: ensure that they don't end up back in front of
Speaker 3: a judge or back you know, in the criminal legal system.
Speaker 3: And so that's sort of what this program sprung up
Speaker 3: out of, and it's what it's meant to address to
Speaker 3: keep people.
Speaker 4: Out of jail.
Speaker 3: I note that twenty seven people have died at Rikers
Speaker 3: since the beginning of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: And just so our listeners and viewers know, Rikers here
Speaker 1: in New York is a place where people are held,
Speaker 1: a pre trial place. Yes, yes, people who are waiting trial.
Speaker 3: People who are waiting trial, most of them, I think,
Speaker 3: like ninety percent of the folks.
Speaker 4: I want to bring Sarah into this conversation to get
Speaker 4: your insight on also the politics when it comes to
Speaker 4: letting people walk through, walk us through, as far as
Speaker 4: what the issues are there and the politics behind that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, bail reform as a policy change has
Speaker 5: attracted a lot of attention nationwide. It's kind of the
Speaker 5: new boogeyman. After the defund the police movement, people were
Speaker 5: talking about sort of diverting funds from police departments and
Speaker 5: reforming the practices of police now we're talking more broadly
Speaker 5: about the criminal legal system that fulla laid out for us,
Speaker 5: trying to think about new ways to hold people responsible
Speaker 5: for crimes, but also sort of understand that the current
Speaker 5: system as it is right now, lets people who have
Speaker 5: the means walk free, while others who do not have
Speaker 5: the means, who are just as innocent before proven guilty,
Speaker 5: have to go to places like rikers. So bail reform
Speaker 5: as a national movement has been tried, and places across
Speaker 5: the US Illinois, Washington, d C. And New York City
Speaker 5: are trying to look at different ways to allow people
Speaker 5: to await trial outside of jails like wrikers. But obviously
Speaker 5: politicians that engage and try to exert these policy changes
Speaker 5: face a lot of political tax It's a hot button
Speaker 5: issue across the left and the right, and so programs
Speaker 5: like this are kind of trying to actually set up
Speaker 5: the infrastructure in place for cities that take on this
Speaker 5: politically fraught challenge of bail reform, like what do people
Speaker 5: who are no longer eligible for bail? What do they do?
Speaker 5: And so Supervisor releases sort of like a programming change
Speaker 5: that attacks this or addresses this more political church political issue,
Speaker 5: and Fuller can talk a little bit more about, you know,
Speaker 5: what politicians face when they do take on Bill reform.
Speaker 2: Well, before we let him do that, let's talk about
Speaker 2: what this looks like in practic And there's a character
Speaker 2: in the story Kevin, which is a pseudonym, but let's
Speaker 2: talk about what Kevin faced and how the program affected
Speaker 2: him personally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, at a basic level, when when you're arrested
Speaker 3: in New York City, you're processed, you're booked, and then eventually,
Speaker 3: usually after twenty four hours or so, you're in front
Speaker 3: of a judge. And you know, in reporting out the story,
Speaker 3: Sarah and I spent a lot of time in court
Speaker 3: watching watching these arraiements, watching this happen, right, and these
Speaker 3: hearings take You wouldn't guess five minutes no matter what
Speaker 3: the charges are. And so at that point a judge
Speaker 3: is going to decide, well, are you going to get
Speaker 3: bail or are they going to release you and say
Speaker 3: come back to your coordinate, or are they going to
Speaker 3: give you supervised release? And so once you're diverted to
Speaker 3: a program like this, someone like Kevin is being connected
Speaker 3: with a social worker immediately and they'll have to meet.
Speaker 3: Depending on the severity of the charges, they'll have to
Speaker 3: meet a certain number of times a month. For him,
Speaker 3: it's four times a month. And essentially it looks like
Speaker 3: a therapy session. You know, he talks to his caseworker
Speaker 3: about issues he's facing and what he's trying to do.
Speaker 3: He's looking for a job maybe, or he's looking for
Speaker 3: you know, help finding housing, and they hook him up
Speaker 3: with with services and and and so in his life,
Speaker 3: it's it's helped him. It's helped connect him with services,
Speaker 3: helped get him a job, and helped, you know, make
Speaker 3: him feel help helped him navigate the system that can
Speaker 3: be so complicated.
Speaker 2: Even you know, one of the most interesting things I
Speaker 2: thought was reminded of is the economic toll that being
Speaker 2: in jail and not being able to afford bail actually
Speaker 2: is talk about what Kevin faced on that front.
Speaker 3: So when he when he was standing in front of
Speaker 3: the judge waiting to hear what is his fate would be, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, uh city prosecutors that asked for a million
Speaker 3: dollars bail and that's uh, that's something he could never
Speaker 3: could never afford or could never pay. And so this
Speaker 3: program allowed for another way right, sort of a midway. Right,
Speaker 3: they don't have to let him go walk free, or
Speaker 3: they're not landing walk free, but they're also not going
Speaker 3: to make him go to Rikers, right, And so he's
Speaker 3: able to do this programming. He's able to still go home,
Speaker 3: but he has this responsibility to come and participate in
Speaker 3: supervise release and he's been going he'do weekly for six
Speaker 3: months as his case winds the system. That's six months
Speaker 3: he would have spent in Rikers.
Speaker 1: It's incredible that story full on its own. But Sarah,
Speaker 1: I want to bring you back in here and talk
Speaker 1: about how the city and advocates for this measure success
Speaker 1: on the larger term. How do we know if it's
Speaker 1: successful here in New York City.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's a really interesting question. I think
Speaker 5: case workers are grappling with that as well. Like one
Speaker 5: of the biggest takeaways, like when we were at Arrangement's court,
Speaker 5: was that people were not getting sent to Rikers and
Speaker 5: they were getting sent to supervis release. And I think
Speaker 5: for caseworkers that's a measure of success. You know, are
Speaker 5: you diverting one more person away from that notorious jail.
Speaker 5: And we saw, as you know, sometimes prosecutors would ask
Speaker 5: for a million dollars bail or we saw you know,
Speaker 5: even fifteen thousand dollars bill, something that defendants just could
Speaker 5: not pay. And we saw judges and public defenders and
Speaker 5: even prosecutors in some instances say, you know, why don't
Speaker 5: we do supervisor release instead. This person is not a
Speaker 5: flight risk. They will return to court. So we saw
Speaker 5: in real time people getting diverted from from breakers. So
Speaker 5: that's one measure of success. Another is how many times
Speaker 5: people are showing up for court again. You know, in
Speaker 5: places like DC, we've seen you know, people release pre
Speaker 5: trial come back to court, you know, more than eighty
Speaker 5: percent of the time. And that's that's really what bill
Speaker 5: is supposed to do. It's supposed to ensure that people,
Speaker 5: you know, face their day in court and don't disappear.
Speaker 5: Supervis release is another way of making sure that people
Speaker 5: do that, that they show back up. And then another
Speaker 5: way of thinking about this is whether people are getting
Speaker 5: re arrested while they're awaiting their day in court. You know,
Speaker 5: people out on supervised release in the city get rearrested
Speaker 5: less than ten percent of the time, less than two
Speaker 5: percent of the time for a violent felony, and you know,
Speaker 5: people are looking at those numbers and trying to understand
Speaker 5: how to get those even lower, and how to work
Speaker 5: with some folks who are recommitting violent acts or even
Speaker 5: other offenses and giving them a lot more attention. Within
Speaker 5: this program, ky full of.
Speaker 4: Something I'm curious about is how does the approach when
Speaker 4: it comes to the US differ than what typically is
Speaker 4: seen more internationally.
Speaker 3: So in other jurisdictions, I mean, cashpiel is seen as
Speaker 3: a last resort. I mean the UK and Canada, and
Speaker 3: in the EU cashpio is sort of like the last
Speaker 3: last resort, and bail bondser illegal in most jurisdictions. I
Speaker 3: think it's just the US and I believe the Philippines
Speaker 3: that allow the.
Speaker 4: US being more of an outlier.
Speaker 6: Clearly, the US is definitely an outlier, but New York
Speaker 6: is also not totally an outlier, right, Like there is
Speaker 6: It's not like I want to get in the politics
Speaker 6: of this still, but like who else is.
Speaker 2: Following New York's lead here? And where else? We should
Speaker 2: we be watching to see what the programs how those
Speaker 2: programs unful?
Speaker 3: So there are quite a few jurisdictions I guess not
Speaker 3: quite a few, but there are some jurisdictions that are
Speaker 3: trying to address the same issue, right, trying to reduce
Speaker 3: jail populations. Because we have to remember that jailing people
Speaker 3: is expensive. Like for a jurisdiction, for municipality, what's the
Speaker 3: cost in New York. In New York, it's like fifteen
Speaker 3: hundred a day I think per person, And so I
Speaker 3: mean it's pricey. Yeah, it's like a you know, I
Speaker 3: think I think it's like sort of like a college
Speaker 3: tuition or something like that. Right, Like you're talking about
Speaker 3: annually jailing people, and so there's an extreme cost for municipalities.
Speaker 3: And then on the other hand, there's an extreme cost
Speaker 3: for the folks who are going to jail. Right, You're
Speaker 3: not working, you're not paying rent, you're not you know,
Speaker 3: watching your kids, you're not doing all of these things
Speaker 3: that contribute to society as well. And so there are
Speaker 3: those costs.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I said, we talked about the politics. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about the politics. What's the city line on this,
Speaker 2: and what about where the state comes in.
Speaker 3: So this is a city, it's a city funded program, right,
Speaker 3: So the city he spends about sixty seven million dollars
Speaker 3: a year on this, and in the last budget cycle
Speaker 3: we saw more money set aside for this program.
Speaker 1: Is that a lot of money or not a lot
Speaker 1: of money? More than than the pre k Wow, as
Speaker 1: we've reported before, I will be off Thursday taking my
Speaker 1: sons pre k. So holy you did the great story
Speaker 1: on pre K earlier this year about Eric Adams not
Speaker 1: providing funding to those PreK centers.
Speaker 3: And so I guess in the grand scheme of thing.
Speaker 3: The New York City budget is one hundred and seven
Speaker 3: billion dollars, so it's not that much money, but it
Speaker 3: is for a program like this, quite a bit of it.
Speaker 3: It's quite a quite an investment.
Speaker 2: And just keep in mind and also the economic side
Speaker 2: of this, right, like instead of paying fifteen hundred dollars
Speaker 2: per person per day, we're allowing those same people who
Speaker 2: you know might not be even violent offenders to basically
Speaker 2: like be able to be having, you know, keep their
Speaker 2: normal feeling right and be in their community. So I
Speaker 2: think it's really interesting. So what about the how does
Speaker 2: how do other jurisdictions? How is this going over elsewhere?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Because clearly we brought up to defend the police as
Speaker 2: a talking point, like this is a charged idea because
Speaker 2: it goes against some conventional, long standing wisdom.
Speaker 3: Definitely, and I think the New York City program sort
Speaker 3: of is a great example of the challenges that programs
Speaker 3: like these fates. Right, Like, on one end, the program
Speaker 3: seems to be working and it seems like it's getting support, right,
Speaker 3: and so it's ramped up, and so they the caseworkers
Speaker 3: have a ton of cases, right, We've met some people
Speaker 3: that have seventy cases on their plate. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: they have to worry about the politics of this, right
Speaker 3: Like New York has rolled back, New York State has
Speaker 3: rolled back it's bail reforms, I think three times at
Speaker 3: this point. Right, in other jurisdictions, we've seen campaign ads
Speaker 3: sort of demonizing bail reform LEAs out in last year
Speaker 3: ran ads right saying that he would, you know, reverse
Speaker 3: a bail laws.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 3: The politics of this are fraud to say the least.
Speaker 3: And we see this in joysticks across the country.
Speaker 1: Full of fantastic story, Sarah, A great story. Sarah Holders,
Speaker 1: City Lab reporter at Bloomberg News on the phone from
Speaker 1: our bureau. Full of Kennedy, City Lab reporter here at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News with us in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio
Speaker 1: along with Joel Webber, the editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. This
Speaker 1: story and more in the City's issue, the double issue
Speaker 1: of BusinessWeek