Good afternoon Chair Salaam and members of the Committee on Public Safety. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today regarding our Office’s Fiscal Year 2026 Preliminary Budget. We thank the City Council for its past support and the other four District Attorneys for their collaboration; we know that a safer and fairer city requires all of us working together.
The twin goals of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office are delivering safety and fairness, and we know that we cannot have one without the other. We are achieving these goals with a targeted strategy focusing on the drivers of violence and investing in preventative measures, all of which will keep our communities safe today and in the long term.
We are proud of the downward trend of serious crime over the past two years of my administration, including a 45% decline in shootings over the past three years. Similarly, we are encouraged by the overall 10% drop in index crime in Manhattan from 2022 to 2024.
Despite the encouraging declines in index crime, we know we have more work to do. We will continue our targeted enforcement efforts through partnership with the NYPD, the community, elected officials, and other law enforcement agencies, and we remain focused on driving these numbers even lower in the years to come to make Manhattan even safer.
HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR EXISTING WORK
GUN VIOLENCE
Fighting the scourge of gun violence is the top priority of our office. As mentioned earlier, in the years since I took office, shootings have declined 45%. We are encouraged by the continued impact of our efforts this year: as of February 23, 2025, shooting incidents are down 36% in Manhattan North and 33% in Manhattan South compared to the same time period in 2024. To achieve these results, we focus our work on both strategic investments and enforcement; both require extensive collaboration with critical partners. Immense credit is due to the hard work of our partners at the NYPD. And, of course, a great deal of credit needs to be given to Manhattan’s tireless community-based organizations and community leaders for the work they do to prevent gun violence before it occurs.
I want to particularly thank this Council for the funding we received in 2023, which was used to hire six gun analysts, one for each of our trial bureaus. These specialized analysts received focused training through our Crime Strategies and Violent Criminal Enterprise Units during their onboarding. Now embedded in their bureaus, they work closely with ADAs on firearm prosecutions, including shooting incidents. Using their training, the analysts complete common call and social media analyses, create video compilations depicting a full timeline surrounding the incident, and synthesize those videos with other evidence. They then testify about their work before the grand jury and, if relevant, at trial. Their work is essential to allow our prosecutors to paint a clear picture to the jury of what happened during an incident of gun violence, and their support is critical to the prosecution of these serious violent felonies.
As another facet of our enforcement strategy, we are part of an intensive, ongoing collaboration called the Gun Violence Strategic Partnership. We sit down five days a week with representatives from every local, state, and federal law enforcement agency in the tri-state area to share information in real time about the most significant drivers of gun violence and gun trafficking. We also cooperate by directing resources towards where we can make the most significant difference.
A salient example of how our enforcement efforts have borne fruit occurred last November, where together with our NYPD partners, we announced an indictment charging 30 individuals associated with three warring street crews who allegedly engaged in six years of retaliatory violence. These 30 individuals, we allege, were responsible for 50% of the shootings in Washington Heights and Inwood last year, as well as violence stretching years before that. We know from experience that removing these drivers of violence from the streets will significantly improve public safety in those communities.
Further, to date, our Ghost Gun Initiative has prosecuted cases involving the seizure of over 134 ghost gun parts, 92 firearms, 443 high-capacity magazines, 49 silencers, and other gear including scopes and rapid-fire modification devices. In 2024 alone, we recovered 35 ghost guns from Manhattan. Unfortunately, the technology behind 3D printing is only becoming more sophisticated, continuing the threat these weapons pose to our community. As a result, we called on YouTube to take additional steps to stop the proliferation of videos on its platform that show how to make and manufacture ghost guns and 3D-printed guns. We also filed an amicus brief along with the City of New York to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of federal regulations that require ghost guns parts to have serial numbers and compel background checks for prospective buyers of ghost gun home-assembly kits. We are also working with State Senator Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Rosenthal to pass legislation (S227/A1777-2025) on the state level to make manufacturing 3D-printed guns and gun parts illegal, and also to stop the sharing, selling, or distributing of files containing blueprints for 3D-printed firearm components.
One part of our strategic investment work, which I am particularly proud to announce we are expanding, is our Youth Gun Violence Prevention Initiative. Through this program, we award grants to community-based organizations to offer wages, stipends, or other incentives to at-risk young people to engage in meaningful jobs and community projects during the summer months. The awards support projects that engage youth in community activation activities such as beautification or creation of community spaces, provide career and job readiness internships, or offer opportunities for intentional and creative self-expression. This initiative was partially inspired by two evidence-based studies; one showed that “cleaning and greening” vacant, blighted lots in cities was associated with a 29% reduction in gun violence in the surrounding blocks and the other found that for disadvantaged high school youth in Chicago, a summer job decreased violence involvement by 43% over 16 months. Based on feedback from staff involved and community members, there has been a real impact in the neighborhoods where the programs are located. Due to these promising results, we recently announced that we are increasing our investment in the program, which comes from our Asset Forfeiture funds, to $300,000 for Summer 2025, up from $200,000 the previous years and are allowing individual groups to receive up to $25,000 or to submit joint proposals with another organization to receive a total of $60,000.
HATE CRIMES
We are grateful to the City Council for granting our request in 2022 for additional funding of $1.7 million to expand our Hate Crimes Unit. That funding was necessary to combat the unprecedented rise in hate crimes that we experienced in Manhattan. With it we were able to expand the Unit from having one Unit Chief, Deputy Unit Chief, and one analyst, to adding 20 cross-designated hate crime ADAs, four investigative hate crime analysts and two investigators with law enforcement experience, both fluent in Cantonese. We work closely with both our Survivor Services Bureau and DANY’s Community Partnerships Unit to engage and collaborate directly with existing community partners to organize hate crime presentations and trainings. This expansion and concerted effort helped to drive a massive increase in hate crime prosecutions, ensuring appropriate accountability, and helping to address the additional harm and trauma experienced by victims of hate crimes.
The number of bias-motivated crimes more than doubled from 2020 to 2021, increasing from 86 reports to 219. The number continued to rise to 242 in 2022 and 268 complaints in 2023. It declined, but only slightly, to 248 in 2024.
The Office responded accordingly. In 2020, DANY prosecuted 28 hate crimes. That number rose to 81 in 2021 with a sharp increase in anti-Asian hate crimes. In 2022 we prosecuted 92 hate crimes. Over the past two years we have continued to address the higher rates of hate crimes, initiating 114 and 101 prosecutions in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Notably, these prosecutions do not completely reflect the number of hate crime incidents we were addressing as one prosecution can encompass multiple incidents.
These additional resources have also allowed us to continue to hold hate crime defendants accountable for their conduct, while providing culturally responsive resources to victims and the various communities that are experiencing these biased attacks.
Some examples include:
- In February 2024, Brandon Elliot was sentenced to 15 years in state prison after pleading guilty to Assault 1 as a Hate Crime and Criminal Possession of a Weapon for brutally assaulting a 65-year-old woman of Filipino descent causing a fractured pelvis and contusions to her forehead and across her body.
- In April 2024, Milton Hamlin was indicted for Attempted Assault 1 as a Hate Crime, Assault 2 as a Hate Crime, and Assault 3 as a Hate Crime after allegedly making homophobic remarks and slashing a gay man who was riding the subway.
- In June 2024, Gino Sozio was convicted at trial and sentenced to 9 years in state prison for slashing a Muslim man with a knife while also shouting Islamophobic slurs at the victim and his friends. He was convicted of Attempted Assault 1 as a Hate Crime, Assault 2 as a Hate Crime and Criminal Possession of a Weapon.
- In December 2024, Perin Jacobchuk was sentenced to 3.5 years in state prison after pleading guilty to Assault 2 as a Hate Crime and Assault 3 as a Hate Crime for making antisemitic threats towards and then punching a 64-year-old Jewish man causing him to fall and suffer a concussion, a broken bone to his hand, broken kneecap, and damage to his teeth, as well as making anti-Asian remarks to a woman and her husband both of Asian descent, and then shoving the woman causing her to fall and injure her back and legs on a concrete staircase.
TRANSIT CRIME
New Yorkers rely heavily on public transportation and our city’s transit system should be a safe environment for all residents and visitors alike, yet subway safety remains a top concern for our communities. Transit crime has come down in the last two years, however it is still higher than pre-pandemic when you adjust for reduced ridership. We are doing the work every day to hold people accountable for victimizing riders and our dedicated transit workers.
We are working with our law enforcement partners to prosecute those who jeopardize the safety of commuters, riders, and workers. In February, we indicted Rason Eagle for Assault in the 2nd Degree for allegedly assaulting a MTA worker who was just doing his job. In October, Abdellahi Mohammed was also indicted for assaulting an on-duty MTA employee, and later pled guilty to Assault in the 2nd Degree and was sentenced to state prison. In April, we indicted Carlton McPherson for Murder in the 2nd Degree for allegedly pushing Jason Volz onto the tracks of an oncoming train at the 125th Street station, killing Mr. Volz.
We also recognize that in order to continue improving rider and employee safety, we need to address the small number of individuals living with mental illness and substance abuse issues on our streets and in our transit system. Neighborhood Navigators, which are discussed in greater detail later in this testimony, include teams of specially trained staff who are working in and around several transit hubs, like the Port Authority and Penn Station. The Navigators connect individuals with chronic mental health and substance abuse issues with resources and housing referrals to address their underlying needs. The Navigators, often in coordination with other city agencies, are addressing issues and needs of certain individuals that often do not rise to the level where criminal prosecution is appropriate.
RETAIL THEFT
Manhattan is the retail capital of the country, and we need our business community to thrive. I understand how challenging shoplifting is for businesses. And I understand the frustration of consumers. We have continued to target the recidivists who are driving a significant amount of retail theft and ensure appropriate accountability. Five percent of the people arrested on a Manhattan retail offense accounted for about one-third of all Manhattan retail theft complaints. In 2024, our Office prosecuted more than 7,800 retail arrest events, nearly twice as many misdemeanor retail arrests and nearly 800 more felony retail arrests than were prosecuted in 2021.
In 2024, we also enhanced our use of trespass affidavits by creating a standardized trespass notice that was shared with retailers in the borough. Our Office rolled out trainings to Manhattan Business Improvement Districts on best practices for using this mechanism to support successful prosecution. The trespass notices have proven to be an important tool in our close collaboration with retailers and law enforcement to protect businesses and drive down retail theft in the borough.
The resolution of a retail case depends on the facts, including the individual’s history and their needs. For some who are opportunists preying on local businesses out of greed, we are pursuing state prison. And for those who have clear mental health or substance use issues, we are using our problem-solving courts to get them into meaningful, long-term treatment.
Further, proactive, upstream investigations into those who stand to profit from this rise in retail theft is a critical piece of our strategy. In May, we announced the indictment of Bibi Rehana Khan and Aaron Khan, and their store, for Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the First Degree for allegedly possessing more than $1 Million in various stolen goods as part of a retail theft fencing operation.
WORKER AND TENANT PROTECTION
The Worker Protection Unit that I started when I took office, and that this Council has funded in past years, continues to stand up for hard-working New Yorkers as we hold accountable companies that line their pockets at the expense of their employees. In February, we indicted Valor Security and Investigations, including six of their executives and employees, for allegedly operating a sham safety training school that issued bogus safety certificates and cards to approximately 20,000 students. At DANY, we value workers and also fight to make sure they receive every dollar they earn. In May, we announced the guilty pleas of a Grimaldi’s Pizzeria owner and Manhattan manager to Attempted Scheme to Defraud for stealing $32,080 in wages from 18 employees. Our team was proud to return the stolen wages and ensure that these hard-working New Yorkers were made whole.
As housing affordability continues to be a paramount issue to New Yorkers, our Tenant Protection Unit, also created in my first year in office, ensures that New Yorkers are able to live in their homes without fearing for their safety. In April 2024, we indicted Daniel Ohebshalom and his companies for multiple counts of Harassment of a Rent Regulated Tenant in the First Degree, among other charges, for allegedly harassing rent-regulated tenants with horrific living conditions to induce them to vacate their apartments.
MENTAL HEALTH/PATHWAYS TO PUBLIC SAFETY
Since taking office, I have also focused strongly on the impact our broken mental health system has on public safety. If you go to Manhattan Criminal Court any day of the week, you can see how this broken system and the lack of treatment, housing, and supportive services leads to greater contact with the criminal justice system. Further, the population of unhoused individuals with untreated mental illness contributes to public safety concerns, despite people with mental illness being more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators. We are approaching this issue in a myriad of ways.
First, we work with our law enforcement partners to enforce the law and remove individuals who pose a risk to the public from the streets. We prosecute thousands of cases ranging from subway pushing to random assaults, and connect victims with our Survivor Services Bureau to address any needs that arise from the crime. Though a defendant’s mental illness is taken into consideration during the prosecution, our role first and foremost is to focus on keeping all New Yorkers safe in our communities.
With that goal in mind, I am proud to continue noting the success of our Pathways to Public Safety Division. We use problem-solving courts with their intensive oversight, comprehensive case management, and individually tailored programming because this approach has a strong track record of making us safer by addressing underlying needs and changing problematic behavior long-term.
We have specially trained Pathways Deputies in each of our trial bureaus and our Special Victims Division to screen cases and determine who should be referred to these courts, which include Manhattan Mental Health Court, Judicial Diversion, and Felony Alternative To Incarceration Court. Those individuals are then directed to the programming that is tailored to their needs. In these courts, a defendant pleads guilty at the outset and accepts a court-supervised mandate of typically 18-24 months of tailored programming with court monitoring. And one very important factor that distinguishes our felony problem-solving courts from less intensive diversion programs is that every graduate has stable housing and a source of income (either a job or disability benefits) when they leave the program, and they are provided with comprehensive case management to ensure that those needs are met.
PSYCHIATRIC LITIGATION
I also want to address the work accomplished by our Psychiatric Litigation Unit, which focuses on our Office’s practices involving individuals with such severe mental health issues that they are found legally unfit for trial. This Unit is dedicated to the monitoring of these cases and is refining our procedures for those cases, helping guide our responses to align with the field’s best practices as the number of these cases began to rise.
As public safety concerns surrounding individuals with severe mental illness increase, we have worked with the Psychiatric Litigation Unit and our partners in the state legislature to address some of this population’s needs that remain unserved. When an individual is found unfit to stand trial for a felony case, the law requires them to be committed to a mental health facility to engage with treatment until they are found fit to proceed. However, if the individual is facing misdemeanor or violation charges, including Assault in the 3rd Degree or Forcible Touching, the case is automatically dismissed by operation of law and therefore sealed. In 2024, 224 misdemeanor cases were dismissed by operation of law in Manhattan alone after defendants were found unfit to stand trial. In 2023, there were 274 misdemeanor dismissals in Manhattan due to findings of mental unfitness. This is up significantly from years prior.
Once the case against an individual charged with a misdemeanor is dismissed by operation of law after a ruling of unfitness, that person is transferred to the custody of the State Office of Mental Health, where the individual is treated in one of our city or state hospitals. Frequently, at the time of their eventual discharge from the hospital, there is little to no scaffolding surrounding that person to ensure long-term stability, increasing the likelihood that that person will reoffend. Recognizing that this gap in the law does not serve these individuals, the victims of crime, nor public safety in general, we worked with State Senator Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Simone to introduce the SUPPORT Act, S1744/A2440-2025, to create a continuum of care for these individuals by mandating the assignment of a Critical Time Intervention (CTI) team and a referral to the agency overseeing Single Point of Access (SPOA). The assignment of a CTI team increases the likelihood that individuals will participate in the services they are connected to through a SPOA referral. These teams build a trusting relationship with individuals and work to encourage follow-through with programming and treatment. Further, the CTI team continues to engage with the individual for an extended period of time, while working towards their ability to function independently. We are encouraged that the Council is currently considering an increase to some of the mental health services New York City’s SPOA may connect these individuals with, including Intensive Mobile Treatment teams, Forensic Assertive Community Treatment teams, and Justice-Involved Supportive Housing.
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
We know that many of the quality of life issues that are of concern to our communities require an interdisciplinary approach to use all of the available tools in our collective toolbox. In 2022, we were proud to support the creation of the 125th Street Collaborative Hub, led by Barbara Askins of the 125th Street Business Improvement District. The Hub brings together businesses, community organizations, and city agencies, including the Department of Sanitation, Health and Mental Hygiene, Homeless Services, NYPD, and Health and Hospitals, on a regular basis to address quality of life issues on 125th Street around the 2/3 line subway stop.
Focused on addressing a range of public safety issues, including retail theft, substance use, the mental health crisis, and more, the Hub deploys teams to conduct regular walkthroughs to observe issues in real time and speak with local community members and businesses on the ground. They also identify specific individuals in the area who may need connections to services, such as housing or medical care, and make referrals to the appropriate city agency or service provider. That kind of community collaboration is incredibly important, and we have been supporting similar models in other neighborhoods.
In July 2024, alongside our City of New York partners and three community co-chairs, we announced the launch of the Midtown Community Improvement Coalition, also known as the Midtown Hub, an interagency quality of life improvement hub that addresses public safety and quality of life issues in Midtown Manhattan. Modeled off the successful 125th Street Hub, the Midtown Hub includes law enforcement partners, more than 20 city agencies, service providers, and other government and community partners. Last month, we added another co-chair and announced that the Midtown Hub will be expanded to also cover Hell’s Kitchen as we continue to support the work of all of these partners.
Earlier this year, together with our City of New York partners and three community co-chairs, we were pleased to announce the implementation of our third Manhattan hub: the Village Interagency Taskforce. This Village hub is focused on improving quality of life and safety issues in and around Washington Square Park, West 4th Street subway station, and surrounding areas. We are also in conversation with elected officials to implement a similar model in the Lower East Side.
As discussed previously, we have also continued to see the benefits from the $6 million of asset forfeiture funds we invested into our Neighborhood Navigators initiative with our partners at The Bridge. These navigators are currently operating in four high needs areas in Manhattan: Inwood and Washington Heights, Central and East Harlem, Chelsea/Hell’s Kitchen/Midtown West, and the Lower East Side and Chinatown. Our funding covers six months of planning and three years of implementation, and we hope that the success of this effort will encourage other partners in government to provide permanent funding. Neighborhood Navigators build rapport with individuals on the street, including those who are unhoused or may be struggling with substance use, by addressing immediate needs. They offer essentials like a cup of coffee, food, clothing, or toiletries kits, and foster trust through these meaningful, everyday acts of care. By growing a relationship, they can then try to connect the individual with longer term services including housing, social service benefits, detox, and mental health treatment. In 2024, Neighborhood Navigators provided immediate resources to more than 550 individuals and made referrals to longer term resources for more than 150 clients.
We have also invested $3 million in a similar initiative, Court-Based Navigators, for individuals leaving arraignments, developed in partnership with the Fortune Society. Court-based navigators bring their own lived experiences to their relationship-building work, approaching individuals leaving arraignments to offer them vital resources such as emergency housing, MetroCards, clothing, and warm meals. The navigators continue to communicate with clients from there, connecting them to a range of services including employment training programs and substance use treatment. From August 2024 to January of 2025, our court-based navigators have engaged with 814 individuals, secured housing placements for 50 people, and provided hundreds of resources and referrals. This includes connecting 101 clients with services such as obtaining vital documents, accessing social service benefits, and pursuing education and employment opportunities. By facilitating immediate voluntary connections to resources post-arraignment, we help ensure that individuals are returning to the community with the immediate support they need and opportunity to connect with longer-term support to avoid further involvement in the criminal justice system.
SUPPORTING VICTIMS
Last year, with the support of additional funding from the New York City Council, we revamped and expanded the services formerly provided by our Witness Aid Services Unit to create the renamed Survivors Services Bureau (“SSB”). With nearly double the staff and a clear mandate from the top, SSB is central to our strategy for advancing public safety by ameliorating the trauma of crime victims and witnesses.
SSB trauma experts are now key members of the prosecution teams that take on cases involving victims, along with ADAs, investigators, analysts, and paralegals. SSB’s early, consistent, and trauma-informed engagement with survivors and their families helps ensure their access to the services they need to rebuild their lives, while helping them navigate New York’s complex court system. SSB helps build community trust in the D.A.’s Office by meeting the needs of Manhattan’s diverse communities with appropriate cultural competency and by strengthening the capacity of the Harlem and Washington Heights Offices to serve uptown residents where they are. By offering trauma-informed and victim-centered support to each survivor – rooted in compassion, dignity, and respect, SSB is supported with the resources needed to engage deeply with survivors for as long as they require.
Last year, we introduced an automated management tool, the Ivanti HEAT system, that streamlines the connection of SSB staff with survivors at the earliest stages of cases by creating a ticket that is sent directly to SSB while the case is being drafted. The new automated system was first implemented as a pilot with only one trial bureau last January, focused on a small subset of cases, and immediately resulted in a dramatic increase in SSB referrals. Given the encouraging growth of referrals in our pilot, we later expanded the tool in the fourth quarter of 2024 to cover all domestic violence cases assessed by each of the 6 trial bureaus. In that quarter alone, using just the Ivanti HEAT system, we had 1,939 DV intakes, nearly 30% of the 6,611 total DV outreaches handled by SSB in 2023. Given these results, we anticipate that DV intakes will continue to grow with the use of this system, increasing our ability to provide services quickly after the case begins.
Our Survivor Services Bureau continues to grow, including adding two more survivor advocates dedicated to our Special Victims Division (SVD) to work towards increasing our connection with survivors earlier on in the life of a case. We have also added an additional Intimate Partner/Sexual Violence counselor to work exclusively with that bureau to support the growing number of dedicated IPSV ADAs at DANY. Additionally, SVD is developing an early engagement model for intimate partner and sexual violence cases that will hold more offenders accountable and increase victim safety. The Early Engagement Team will consist of prosecutors, investigators, analysts, and victim advocates that will work closely with NYPD to investigate these cases and quickly connect victims with comprehensive services and support.
The Early Engagement Team will coordinate with NYPD to create protocols to review Domestic Incident Reports and investigate intimate partner violence complaints. This will help identify potentially high-risk cases and ensure timely collection of critical evidence for cases to proceed, enhancing and accelerating the investigation to improve prosecution outcomes. The initiative will also increase survivor and community safety by connecting victims to services as soon as possible, creating more trust with survivors at an earlier stage, and creating a more coordinated community response. All these efforts make us safer: by supporting victims in the justice process, we increase the chances that we can hold people accountable for serious crimes.
NEW ASKS
ECAB/DISCOVERY
Discovery continues to be a persistent issue for our office. The sheer volume of discoverable material that we must produce and the timeline for producing it remain a serious concern for our office. As a result of the voluminous discovery we receive and the short timelines for compliance, thousands of cases, particularly misdemeanors, are dismissed because of an inability to turn over all materials that “relate to the subject matter of the case” in short time frame—even materials that are not directly relevant to the crime itself, such as the receipt from the car service that brought the victim to testify in the Grand Jury. Citywide, the overall case dismissal rate has increased from 42% in 2019 before discovery reform was passed to 62% in 2023 when 20,538 more cases were dismissed.
We are encouraged by the Governor’s proposed amendments to the discovery laws included in her FY 2026 Executive Budget, which will address these skyrocketing dismissal rates by ensuring that remedies for discovery issues are proportional to the resulting prejudice suffered by the defendant. We strongly support that proposal and are continuing to have conversations with state legislators to see this issue is corrected in a way that equally serves the fairness of our legal system and public safety statewide.
Though index crimes are down in Manhattan, there has been a significant increase in arrests in the past few years. In 2024, we screened 20% more misdemeanor cases than in 2023. Our Early Case Assessment Bureau (ECAB) is open 19 hours a day, 365 days a year to process these arrests. Adding 12 new paralegals to the ECAB team will greatly assist in processing these arrests shortly after the individual has been arrested ensuring that the subsequent arraignment is as timely as possible.
We are also working hard to address the drastically higher dismissal rates by ensuring that all discoverable materials are ordered, tracked, and processed by dedicated Discovery Specialists working within ECAB as early as possible. Currently three Discovery Specialists are fulfilling this role, but in order to handle the discovery burden caused by the increased number of misdemeanor cases, we anticipate needing five more Discovery Specialists to help our ADAs swiftly fulfill their legal obligations to exercise due diligence and make all reasonable efforts to identify and obtain mandatory discovery. Given the broad range of discoverable materials that may exist for each case, having dedicated specialists tasked with contacting all relevant agencies, cataloging their efforts, and helping organize what is received is critical to allowing the assigned ADA to quickly review the materials received and share the same with the defense attorney. We expect this expansion to cost $910,000 each year.
PATHWAYS TO PUBLIC SAFETY HEADCOUNT
As discussed earlier in this testimony, we are immensely proud of the work done by our Pathways to Public Safety Division in evaluating eligible individuals to divert away from the traditional trial courtrooms into problem-solving courts. Pathways deputy bureau chiefs screen every felony case within days of arrest, reviews thousands of misdemeanor cases each year, and we staff Midtown Community Justice Center several days a week. Additionally, Pathways is working with the Office of Court Administration to launch a Misdemeanor Alternative to Incarceration Compliance Court Part which Pathways ADAs and case coordinators will oversee. By next month, Pathways will be staffing 44 court parts each month. This is significant as the Division currently has only 19 attorneys assigned to it. Given our limited legal staff, we rely heavily on professional staff. We are looking to add an additional 9 members to the Pathways to Public Safety team, one supervisor, 6 Case Coordinators, and 2 Re-entry Specialists.
Case Coordinators support Pathways ADAs by case managing programming participants, including coordinating treatment plans and referrals with providers, obtaining programmatic reports and updates from providers, and asking necessary follow-up questions regarding compliance with treatment mandates. We are looking to expand this critical team by hiring 6 new Case Coordinators.
Pathways also oversees Inside Criminal Justice, which is a six-week seminar during which incarcerated individuals in Queensboro Correctional Facility engage with prosecutors from our office in deliberative dialogues about the criminal justice system. They work collaboratively to co-author policy proposals that seek to advance public safety. We have two individuals on our team who currently work with ICJ graduates to provide reentry wrap-around services and case management. Our hope is to continue supporting ICJ graduates post-release, and to further advance our public safety goals by offering wrap-around support to participants in Manhattan’s Felony Alternative to Incarceration Court Part who do not successfully complete their programming mandates, and as a result are sentenced to a period of incarceration. Planning for their reentry into community needs to begin as soon as they are sentenced. Two dedicated Reentry Specialists are needed to support this vital work.
Adding these 9 new members to our Pathways team to bolster the critical work they do diverting individuals away from the criminal justice system and to support individuals returning to our communities from correctional facilities is anticipated to cost $618,000 per year.
NEW MID-LEVEL ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEYS
Over the course of an ADAs career within our Office, as time passes and individuals gain experience, they take on more serious and sometimes complex cases. This creates a natural path for those lawyers who choose to remain with our Office and also allows for cases to be assigned based on experience and length of service. Though our Office is seeing historically low rates of attrition, we are still feeling the effects of the significant attrition that occurred both prior to the implementation of Discovery Reform and after COVID. As a result, our Office is now lacking in mid level experienced attorneys that would be handling more challenging and serious cases, which has caused significant strain on those who remain in the Office in those middle years. It is extremely important that our Office is able to attract not only those candidates who are fresh out of law school, but also candidates that have more experience and can handle the cases generally assigned to more seasoned ADAs.
We are now asking for additional funding of $2,600,000 per year so that we can hire 20 mid-level Assistant District Attorneys to ensure that the attrition of years past does not have a long-term impact on our ability to try more complex cases and help guide and mentor our new Assistants coming to DANY straight from law school.
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