CENTER FOR ALTERNATIVE SENTENCING AND EMPLOYMENT SERVICES INC
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : l****s@c***s.o*g
Mission Statement
CASES is one of New York City's leading providers of alternative to incarceration and behavioral health treatment programs for youth and adults who have become involved in the criminal justice system. CASES programs provide education, employment, family, housing, mental health, and substance use services. These programs target young people (age 12-24) and adults who have support and treatment needs that can be better met in the community as opposed to in jail or prison. CASES programs are proven to reduce recidivism while costing less when compared to incarceration. CASES helps people to address challenges and develop skills as they build a productive life in the community.
About This Cause
The mission of CASES is to increase public safety through innovative services that reduce crime and incarceration, improve behavioral health, promote recovery and rehabilitation, and create opportunities for success in the community. Our vision is a city in which a person's previous criminal involvement or behavioral health needs do not limit the opportunity to realize his or her best life. CASES was founded in 1989 through the merger of two long-running projects created by the Vera Institute of Justice: 1) the Court Employment Project, established in 1967 to provide meaningful alternatives to incarceration for New York City judges sentencing young people charged with felonies, and 2) the Community Service Sentencing Project, one of the nation's first programs to use community service as a justice system tool for responding to low-level offenders. Over the past 25 years, CASES has evolved into a multi-service agency providing a full spectrum of support and treatment services to address the risks and needs experienced by justice-involved youth and adults and to help them build safe and productive lives in the community. CASES serves three primary populations: 1) youth and adults who would otherwise be jail-bound as a result of felony or misdemeanor offenses--through our alternative-to-incarceration and alternative-to-detention programs; 2) individuals at a high risk of continued criminal involvement--through our voluntary programs for young people with recent justice-involvement, many of whom are returning to the community following detention or incarceration; and 3) youth and adults with mental illness who are not engaged in traditional mental health systems or treatment--including through our State-licensed, outpatient Nathaniel Mental Health Clinic. CASES programs operate in the five boroughs of New York City, with a majority of our participants residing in neighborhoods in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn that have high rates of poverty and crime. For example, nearly 80% of participants in our primary youth program--the Court Employment Project--reside in zip codes where the youth poverty rate exceeds 30%, and nearly 60% reside in neighborhoods targeted by the City's Department of Probation for high rates of criminal involvement among residents. CASES' participants are overwhelmingly disconnected from school or work, and many have behavioral health treatment needs and struggle with homelessness. Every year, our programs help justice-involved individuals to earn educational credentials, enter college, build work-readiness skills, secure employment, obtain stable housing, reconnect with families, engage in mental health and/or substance use treatment, and avoid recidivism. In the coming year, CASES will serve approximately 5,000 youth and adults in 15 programs. CASES has established unique expertise in serving persons with serious mental illness and co-occurring substance use, helping these individuals to live safely in the community and achieve recovery. In 2014, CASES opened the Nathaniel Clinic, an outpatient mental health clinic located alongside our Central Harlem offices that specializes in serving justice-involved youth and adults who have serious mental illness. The clinic's innovative model provides mental health treatment integrated at a single site with substance use, physical health, and legal services. At capacity, the clinic--which is licensed by the New York State Office of Mental Health--will serve 400 clients annually. By spring 2015, we also expect to open a clinic satellite at CASES' offices in Downtown Brooklyn.