Grace Y. Li
Volume 76, Issue 5, 1307-1372
A new, previously unstudied institution is addressing felonies, including violent felonies of the highest levels, without imposing incarceration as the sanction. Attempts to abolish prisons, or at least reduce racialized mass incarceration, must consider how to respond to serious and violent crimes. This Article offers an analysis of a real-world, ongoing experiment in doing so.
The Manhattan Felony Alternative-to-Incarceration Court (“ATI Court”) is the first and, thus far, the only court in the country that systematically offers defendants of any demographic and any charge the opportunity to be diverted from the traditional criminal legal system and to avoid prison. Defendants are mandated instead to engage with community-based social services, such as education, mental health treatment, job skills training, substance use programming, and housing support.
This Article is the first academic work to describe and conduct an institutional analysis of this paradigm-shifting phenomenon, and the first text providing an in-depth, publicly available account of the court. I collected empirical data using qualitative methods. Based on my site visits, my interviews and correspondence with court actors, and court documents, this Article describes the court, situates it in the context of existing “alternatives to incarceration,” and analyzes the court’s design.