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MOCJ director Gianna Logan outlines reentry expansions and warns of preliminary cuts to ATI and reentry services
Summary
Gianna Logan, director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, told the council the office plans to expand transitional housing and reentry supports, cited an upcoming addition of more than 100 beds, said ATI programs serve about 9,000 people a year and reentry about 4,000, and noted the administration is working with OMB on preliminary budget cuts to ATI and reentry.
Gianna Logan, director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ), told the New York City Council that the office is investing in programs meant to keep people out of jail and support people returning from custody. "When people have meaningful work and stable housing, they are less likely to return to the criminal legal system," Logan said, framing investments as both safety-promoting and cost-effective.
Logan said MOCJ is expanding emergency transitional housing, with "more than a 100 beds coming online in the upcoming months," and described workforce and placement partnerships intended to sustain participants. MOCJ staff later told the council the city now has about 800 emergency and transitional housing beds and plans for roughly 150 more over the next year; providers named in testimony included the Fortune Society, Housing Works and Housing Plus.
Council members probed specific budget lines. The council noted $26,000,000 baselined in the plan for hate-crime prevention; MOCJ deferred to its CFO, who said the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes (OPHC) currently has a $3,000,000 OTPS budget and three authorized full-time personnel. Logan said the $26 million would be used to expand personnel and programming overseen by OPHC, but she did not provide a borough-level distribution.
On alternatives-to-incarceration (ATI) and reentry, MOCJ staff said ATI programs serve about 9,000 people a year and reentry services about 4,000. Council members flagged the preliminary budget, which they described on the record as including "1.3 and 3.3 cuts to ATI programming and reentry services." Logan said MOCJ is working with OMB to preserve or restore necessary funding but that out-year allocations remained under discussion.
Logan also described system-level work to shorten criminal-case timelines: MOCJ is coordinating with the NYPD, district attorneys and public defenders to improve discovery systems and ensure evidence flows between vendor platforms and agency systems, citing state discovery funding and an ongoing, borough-by-borough rollout of technology.
Council members pressed about timelines and capacity for Local Law 139 assessments for court-based ATI programs and asked whether Harbor House and other transitional facilities had sufficient beds; MOCJ acknowledged capacity gaps for people with dual diagnoses and said some additional beds might be available through partners, but precise borough distribution and program-level cut details were "not specified" in testimony.
The testimony closed with council follow-ups and a note that MOCJ would continue working with OMB on the preliminary budget.
