Revamped DA Community Service Program a Success

Rice diverts 57% more low-level defendants to service for non-profits

MINEOLA, NY - Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced today that in the first year of her office’s newly-revamped community service program, the office has diverted more than 3,000 low-level defendants to rehabilitative community service projects benefitting  dozens of non-profit organizations struggling during the economic recession. The number of defendants participating in Rice’s new system is up 57% from the year-long period prior to the initiative’s launch.

In July 2008, the District Attorney contracted with the non-profit Education and Assistance Corporation, Inc., (EAC) to develop a way to more frequently use and more efficiently tailor and monitor community service as a component of a defendant’s criminal case. Rice’s goal was to provide more service to the community, a more rehabilitative approach to the service, and to develop a better way to monitor a term of service’s completion and success. 

Rice said that in the past, the placement of defendants in community service programs was rare because prosecutors had no way of ensuring the service was complete or that it was of value to the community. In lieu of substantive community service, low-level defendants prosecuted under the old system often paid a small fine and walked directly out of court.

Under Rice’s system, EAC administers screenings of defendants to determine where their abilities can have the most positive impact on the community. EAC then matches defendants with one of 66 non-profit organizations to serve the time imposed as a result of their criminal case. The EAC is able to monitor the success and confirm the completion of a defendant’s term of service.

Rice said that since the DA’s office has been able to more effectively tailor and monitor community service performed by defendants, her office has placed a greater emphasis on this option for some low-level offenders convicted of petit theft, graffiti and other non-violent misdemeanor offenses or ordinance and traffic violations. In the year prior to the new system’s launch, 1,954 defendants received some amount of community service as a component of their sentence. During the first year of Rice’s program, 3,062 defendants have been placed into community service.

“I don’t believe low-level offenders should be given a slap on the wrist, pay a few bucks, and be on their way,” said Rice. “I believe they should be forced to give back to the community. With our community’s non-profits struggling during this economic climate, community service is all the more important. By partnering with EAC, we take the guesswork out of community service and we provide an experience far more likely to aid in the rehabilitation of a defendant. We are lessening the likelihood defendants will re-offend, we are providing a workforce to struggling non-profit organizations, and it doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime.”

To cover the cost of EAC administration, defendants sentenced to perform community service pay a one-time fee of either $150 or $200, based on the length of the service.  “This system benefits the community and costs the taxpayers nothing.”

Rice said that the EAC also offers defendants valuable substance abuse counseling, job training and mental health counseling.

“To fight recidivism you have to fight the root causes of crime. This valuable assistance is not only a public health issue for some of these defendants, but it’s a public safety issue for our communities,” said Rice. 

Among the organizations partnering with the DA’s community service program are the Freeport Animal Shelter, Farmingdale Adult Day Care, Long Beach’s MLK Center, Goodwill Industries in Bellmore, the American Red Cross, Five Towns Community Center, Great Neck Head Start, Hempstead Hispanic Civic Association, the Islamic Center for Long Island, the Nassau County Parks Department, Roosevelt-Freeport EOC, and the Salvation Army.