The History of the Correctional Association of New York
Report cover

A Citizen Crusade
For Prison Reform

NYCHS is honored to be permitted to post this excerpts presentation of the Correctional Association of NY's 150th anniversary history authored by Ilan K. Reich.
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A Citizens Crusade for Prison Reform was published and copyrighted in 1994 by the Correctional Association of NY that retains all rights.


Citizen Crusade for Prison Reform back cover.

X:
Looking to the Future

After 150 years the Association is as vigorous as ever. Its current and recent projects -- the Visiting Committee, AIDS in Prison, Women in Prison, and Prison Mental Health -- have helped achieve significant successes. These efforts are at least partly responsible for the following outcomes:

  • New York State and City are now providing more funding for alternatives to incarceration and drug treatment programs;
  • the city has reduced its jail population;
  • the state prison system has improved medical treatment for prisoners with HIV/AIDS, providing the drug AZT and other needed medicines;
  • the state has expanded innovative in-prison programs like shock incarceration;
  • the state has improved conditions and expanded programs for women and mentally impaired inmates;
  • and the city has removed many hazardous conditions that pre-arraignment detainees have endured in the court holding pens for many years.

THE AUTHOR

Ilan K. Reich is a corporate executive at Western Publishing Group, Inc., in New York City. He is a 1979 graduate of Columbia Law School and currently lives in Manhattan with his family.

Mr. Reich serves as a member of the Visiting Committee of the Correctional Association of New York, which monitors and reports on prison conditions throughout the state. He undertook to write this history of the Correctional Association as a volunteer in conjunction with its 150th anniversary celebration.

-- [From the last page -- p. 88 -- of A Citizen Crusade For Prison Reform]

The Association's current activities -- projects on pressing and timely criminal justice issues, lobbying days, published research reports, videos, visits to prisons, press releases, newsletters, and coalition building -- are widely respected by criminal justice. professionals and other concerned groups and individuals.

Through its policy analysis and advocacy efforts, the Association's work demonstrates the positive role that citizens can play in improving society.

Looking to the future, the Association plans to sustain its present level of project activity while at the same time expanding its horizons in two areas: first, by building its capacity to visit and monitor prisons with a community-based network throughout the state; and second, by focusing on specific issues in areas such as juvenile justice, appropriate responses to sex offenders, and effective employment programs for former prisoners.

For an on-line Finding Aid to 1846-1988 records of the Correctional Association of New York, go to:

M.E. Grenander Dept.
of Special Collections and Archives
Archives of Public Affairs and Policy

Through these activities the Association intends to uphold and broaden its historic, central mission -- to create a more fair, efficient, and humane criminal justice system and a safer, more just, and responsible society.

In reviewing the Association's role as a catalyst for prison and criminal justice reforms through the prism of time one discerns numerous common themes. Since 1844 the organization has remained nonpartisan, autonomous, and uncommitted to the agenda of any political party.


CANY web site logo at www.corrassoc.org

Among the features on the CANY site is a Publications Page listing various fact sheets, position papers, videos and reports published by the association including A Citizen Crusade for Prison Reform, from which this NYCHS excerpt presentation was taken. The page can access a downloadable printable form (in Adobe Acrobat PDF format) for ordering the publications listed.

. . . Then, as now, the Association appreciates that its immediate constituency -- prisoners, former inmates, and their families -- is often unpopular, and that the Association's cause -- a more equitable and truly just criminal justice system -- is often controversial and certainly politically difficult to achieve. Then, as now, the organization often plays the role of being government's conscience, seeking to hold society to standards of decency and high ideals.

The public service spirit of the Association is the avatar of what a citizen-based group should be. Driven by a steadfast commitment to improve not only the criminal justice system, but also to enhance the quality of life in the entire community through programs and approaches that are more humane, sensible and effective, the Association looks forward to the inevitable challenges of the decades ahead.


The History of the Correctional Association of New York
Report cover

A Citizen Crusade
For Prison Reform

NYCHS is honored to be permitted to post this excerpts presentation. For more on CANY, visit its web site; write it at 135 E.15th St., NY NY 10003 or call (212) 254-5700.
NYCHS logo

A Citizens Crusade for Prison Reform was published and copyrighted in 1994 by the Correctional Association of NY that retains all rights.

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