In the span of the past week, Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards has allowed the early release of four people incarcerated in city jails, signaling a willingness to wield a little-used power that previous commissioners employed more sparingly.
Under Article 6-A of the State Correction Law, the commissioner can allow people serving sentences of less than a year to complete their time at home.
Criminal justice advocates have long pushed city officials to use it as a tool to reduce the jail population.
Richards has now freed 14 detainees under the program and is on pace to release about 60 people by the end of the year, according to jail sources. His predecessor, Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, released between 40 and 50 people annually, city officials said.
“We commend Commissioner Stanley Richards and the Mamdani administration for using 6-A to bring people home. It’s exactly the kind of tool we should be using,” Tina Luongo, chief attorney of the criminal defense practice at The Legal Aid Society, told The City Reporter.
“Keeping people in jail doesn’t make us safer — it just causes harm,” she added.
The spate of releases comes a day before the City Council has an oversight hearing scheduled to discuss ways to reduce the jail population.
Many criminal justice experts say that is a key way to reduce violence and make major improvements to a much maligned jail system.
There are currently 581 people on Rikers Island serving a so-called “city sentence” of up to a year who could potentially be eligible for early release, jail records show.
Not all of those incarcerated people would necessarily be considered appropriate candidates for early release, however. Jail commissioners in the past have internally barred people convicted of a sex crime or violent assault.
People released under the program are still closely monitored by a department case manager and must check in weekly. They are also connected with a community nonprofit organization for help with job placement and housing.
Due to those restrictions, some offered to be let out early this year actually declined. In March, Richards testified at a City Council hearing that five people chose to finish out their sentence.
The hearing on Thursday will focus in part on delays in the criminal court system that have kept people incarcerated for longer periods. A 2024 analysis by the city comptroller’s office found a 179% increase between 2019 and 2023 of felony cases that take more than three years to resolve.
Of the four people recently released, three had been convicted of criminal possession of a weapon and one was serving a sentence for burglary, correction records show.
Patrick Gallahue, the department’s chief spokesperson, did not comment by deadline.
In March, Richards told Vital City that he plans to use his 6-A power “to make sure people who can be safely managed in the community get access to services so they don’t come back.”
Still, the process has long remained opaque and jail officials have never publicly posted the names of those let out early, including under Richards.
At the end of last year, city lawmakers passed legislation requiring the Correction Department to detail how many people are considered eligible and how many were accepted or denied. The first report is due July 1.
The debate over 6-A comes as the Rikers population remains far above the level envisioned under the city’s plan to close the jail complex.
The jail population in the city has steadily increased since the pandemic when it fell below 4,000 people for the first time in decades. There are currently 6,573 people locked up at Rikers, according to city records.
That’s down from the roughly 7,000 people in March 2025 during the Adams administration.
Even with the recent decline, officials and advocates say reducing the jail population remains critical to the city’s long-delayed plan to shutter Rikers.
While the penal island has a maximum capacity of at least 10,000 in multiple buildings, the population increase jeopardizes the $16 billion plan to close Rikers jails by 2027 as required by a de Blasio-era law.
The borough-based jail initiative calls for the construction of four smaller detention facilities near courthouses in Brooklyn, The Bronx, Manhattan and Queens, altogether holding 4,160 jail beds, along with 363 hospital beds.
Due to a series of delays, the new jails are not expected to be completed until 2033, according to the most recent timeline based on city contracts.
Zachary Katznelson, executive director of the new Independent Rikers Commission re-convened by the City Council in 2023, urged Richards to continue to use 6-A to reduce the population.
“It’s one of the few tools that he controls,” Katznelson told The City Reporter. “This is a very smart public safety policy.”
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