ADVOCACY THAT CHANGES MINDS

In honor of our founder’s tireless efforts to promote the rights and fair treatment of people with histories of justice involvement, Fortune launched the David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy (DRCPP) in 2007. DRCPP resourced and advanced our policy development, advocacy, technical assistance, training, and community education efforts.

Fortune’s unique three-dimensional perspective and approach to shaping policy make the agency particularly effective in advocacy. Because the David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy (DRCPP) is a policy center embedded in a significant direct service organization, we can leverage specific advantages not available to other advocacy organizations.

These advantages include:

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:

ENDING MASS INCARCERATION:
  • Promoting community-based programs as prevention of and alternatives to incarceration.
  • Educating community and stakeholders about individual and community harm caused by mass incarceration through presentations, editorial pieces and public rallies.
IMPROVING CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT:
  • Increasing access to vital services and promoting safety for incarcerated people.
  • Working to close Rikers Island and change harmful correctional practices.
  • Amplifying perspectives of people impacted by inhumane conditions inside jails and prisons.
PROMOTING FAIR REENTRY:
  • Protecting rights to healthcare, housing, employment and education for people with criminal legal system involvement regardless of their race, gender and gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, citizenship, age or income.
  • Providing expertise and technical assistance locally and nationwide to expand safe, stable and affordable housing options for people with conviction histories.
  • Serving as an institutional plaintiff in litigation targeting discrimination based on justice system involvement including housing and employment policies.
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  • #CLOSERikers

    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

    #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.

  • #CommunitiesNotCages

    Eliminate Mandatory Minimum Act – S.6471/ A.2036 

    • Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences, providing judges with greater discretion in making individualized determinations, with a presumption against incarceration.

    Second Look Act  S.321/ A.531 

    • Allow people who have served half or 10 years of their sentences to apply for reconsideration and possible reduction of their terms of incarceration.

    Earned Time Act – A.1128/ S.774 

    • Expand opportunities to earn “good time” and “merit time” credited against a prison sentence.
  • Reentry from the Inside Out - A3934/A3935
    Reentry from the Inside Out (RIO) recognizes that “reentry” must start before people have been released from prison. The two bills that make up RIO are A3934, which would establish a pilot program to provide access to a range of reentry services before and after release, and A3935, which would require the NY State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to coordinate with social service agencies and non-profits to assist with benefits applications before release.
  • Youth Justice and Opportunities Act - 4238/ S.3426

    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.

  • Reentry Assistance - 6643A

    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.

  • Jury of Our Peers Act - S.206A / A.1432A

    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.

  • New York for All Act - 987/A.5686

    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.

  • Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP) - 568B / A.4021A

    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.

  • Compassion and Reproductive Equity (CARE) Act - 7630A /S.7132A

    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.

  • Promoting Visitor Access to Loved Ones on Rikers Island

    Int 0420-2024

    • The bill requires the DOC to establish a child visitor program to improve the experience of children visiting DOC facilities. It also mandates annual reporting on the program.

    Int 1026-2024 

    • The law requires the DOC to provide separate reporting for in-person and televisits, including detailed reasons for incomplete visits. Additionally, the DOC must record instances where an individual in custody refuses a visit after being informed and provide those recordings to defense attorneys upon request.
  • 13th Forward

    No Slavery in NY Act – S.308/A.3142 

    • No Slavery in NY would prohibit involuntary employment of people in prison and provide that no person in prison would be compelled to provide labor against their will by force or threat.

    Fairness and Opportunity for Incarcerated Workers Act – S.416A/A.3481B 

    • Fairness and Opportunity for Incarcerated Workers would establish a New York state prison labor board to create, monitor and enforce an equitable and rehabilitative prison labor system. It would abolish penal servitude by prohibiting the forced labor of incarcerated individuals, providing fair wages and treatment for them, and banning the use of their labor for earnings.

    Prison Minimum Wage Act – S.2345 

    • This bill establishes a $3.00 per hour minimum wage for incarcerated individuals, aiming to eliminate exploitative labor practices and honor the promise of the Thirteenth Amendment by ending remnants of slavery in correctional labor.

    Cap the Commissary – S.1744/A.5134 

    • This bill ensures that items sold at correctional facility commissaries and canteens are priced at market value. It also stipulates that funds in an incarcerated person’s commissary account can only be used to purchase goods or items.
  • Parole Justice

    Fair and Timely Parole  A.162/ S.307 

    • Fair and Timely Parole would provide a more meaningful parole review process for incarcerated individuals who are already parole-eligible, and it would ensure that people are evaluated for release based on who they are today, including their rehabilitation, personal transformation, and their current risk of violating the law.

    Elder Parole  S.2423/ A.2035 

    • Elder Parole would provide incarcerated people aged 55 and older who have already served 15 or more years an opportunity for parole release consideration. This includes some of the statestate’sst and sickest incarcerated people.
  • Treatment Not Jails - 1263/ S.1976

    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.

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