1) Cultural Competency
Having professional staff at every level of the agency and Governing Board directly impacted by the legal system helps identify barriers to reentry, craft policy recommendations, and advocate for change.
2) Access to Policymakers
As a longstanding service provider, we have solid, mutually beneficial relationships with policymakers. We leverage these relationships to gain access to key players and help advance our agenda.
3) Natural Base of Constituents
Fortune maintains a natural and closely connected base of grassroots constituents. Each year, Fortune serves thousands of people with legal system involvement through various discharge planning, reentry services, and alternatives to incarceration programming.
Promoting Desistance: Transforming Community Supervision for Lasting Change
The Fortune Society and the Center for Effective Public Policy (CEPP) joined forces to create a training session focusing on fostering desistance to create safer, stronger communities. Participants will learn to distinguish desistance from recidivism, explore the limitations of current evaluation metrics, and implement innovative strategies to promote lasting rehabilitation.
Both Sides of the Bars
“Both Sides of the Bars” (BSTOB) is our thought-provoking show, aired monthly. It explores the criminal legal system from diverse perspectives, especially those directly impacted. Through meaningful discussions, we examine systemic challenges, intersections of social justice, and efforts to create a more equitable future.
Housing as a Pathway to Justice (H2J) Toolkit
The Fortune Society and Enterprise Community Partners developed the H2J Toolkit to help affordable housing providers better serve system-impacted individuals. This digital resource highlights systemic barriers, identifies opportunities for equity, and offers innovative strategies to address gaps in housing access.
Policy Center Collective
The Policy Center Collective (PCC) is a group for Fortune staff passionate about system reform to collaborate, share ideas, and lead impactful initiatives. Meeting monthly, PCC members discuss legislative updates, plan events, and brainstorm innovative solutions to advance justice reform.
DRCPP’s advocacy platform highlights priorities aimed at advancing our mission. DRCPP is a means of leveraging our internal expertise to advocate for a fairer criminal justice system, promote effective program models for people with criminal justice histories, and change counterproductive laws and policies that prevent this population from successfully reentering the community. Our priorities include:
An ongoing and desperate humanitarian crisis at Rikers Island has been decades in the making. We must ensure that the plan to close Rikers Island in 2027 is followed upon completion and opening of a network of four modern, humane jail sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. We must also ensure that people incarcerated in our city jails are treated humanely.
#BEYONDrosies advocates for the women and gender-expansive people at the Rose M. Singer Center (Rosie’s) on Rikers Island to reduce the population of those incarcerated to under 100 individuals and close Rosie’s before the City’s 2027 timeline.
Intro 1100-2024 mandates the Department of Social Services to expand eligibility for existing city-funded supportive housing programs to include single adults, adult families, and families with children where the head of household has experienced justice system involvement in the past 12 months, is homeless or at risk of homelessness, and has a severe mental illness, substance use disorder, or both.
Eliminate Mandatory Minimum Act – S.6471/ A.2036
Second Look Act – S.321/ A.531
Earned Time Act – A.1128/ S.774
The Youth Justice & Opportunities Act would expand Youthful Offender status eligibility for people under age 25 who currently face the threat of permanent criminal convictions and adult prison sentences. Young people’s development continues through their mid-twenties. They should not face lifelong direct and collateral consequences, including a loss of future employment and access to stable housing, for mistakes made during maturation. Given that the vast majority of young people arrested in New York are Black and Latinx, this effort is critical to advancing racial justice.
This initiative establishes a reentry fund to provide eligible individuals with a $425 monthly stipend for up to six months upon release from a state correctional facility, ensuring financial support during the critical reentry period.
The Jury of Our Peers Act passed both houses of the legislature in 2024. It would end New York’s permanent bar on jury service for people with past felony convictions, thus promoting civic engagement and enhancing the diversity of our juries which promotes fairness and mitigates racial disparities in outcomes within our criminal legal system.
This bill prohibits all local and state law enforcement agencies and public officials from cooperating with ICE or engaging in immigration enforcement. This includes barring local authorities from sharing information about immigration status or facilitating ICE detentions.
The Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP) will establish a statewide rental subsidy program for low-income families and individuals facing eviction, who are currently homeless, or are facing loss of housing. Unlike other subsidy and funding programs, the bill defines “homeless” to “explicitly include people being released from, or scheduled to be released from, incarceration, and lacking stable housing upon release.” It would be available to people who are not eligible for local or federal rental assistance programs, including New Yorkers with felony conviction histories.
Establishes a comprehensive, human rights-based statutory policy to address the needs of incarcerated pregnant and postpartum individuals and their children, ensuring their welfare and protection.
No Slavery in NY Act – S.308/A.3142
Fairness and Opportunity for Incarcerated Workers Act – S.416A/A.3481B
Prison Minimum Wage Act – S.2345
Cap the Commissary – S.1744/A.5134
Fair and Timely Parole – A.162/ S.307
The Treatment Not Jail (TNJ) Act would expand access to judicial diversion for people with mental health issues and cognitive impairments.
We are also partners in the Justice Roadmap, consisting of a group of organizations and advocates who joined forces to combat the criminal and immigration legal systems that oppress and criminalize Black and brown communities. We will commit renewed energy towards efforts to protect and uphold the rights and humanity of people ensnared in both systems.