Ray's Program at the Friends of Brook Park Youth Farm highlighted in newly released Alternatives To Incarceration (ATI) Report, and Ray was a featured ATI
Panel Presenter!
NYCCGC president, Ray Figueroa, was a featured panelist on a panel: “MORE COMMUNITY RE-INVESTMENT, LESS YOUTH INCARCERATION” along with the Commissioner of the New York City Dept. of Probation, the Associate Commissioner for Juvenile Justice as well as senior members of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and other system-based and community-based stakeholders – all discussing the findings of a recently released scientific report that resulted from a two year investigation of community-based Alternatives-To-Incarceration (ATI) for Youth.
That report included his community garden’s Youth Farm Program at Friends of Brook Park among others. The report confirmed that community-based ATI
programs like the one at the Brook Park Youth Farm do work in reducing recidivism (i.e., re-arrest and re-incarceration) among youth at a
significantly higher rate than conventional criminal justice system programs which include incarceration and do so at significantly lower
costs. The Youth Farm Program is highlighted on page 16 of the report (PDF).
To see video footage of Ray’s panel presentation, click here. His remarks are at the following time-stamped intervals on the video:
1. 51:03 – 56:56;
2. 1:13:01 - 1:15:27; and,
3. 1:19:14 – 1:20:03 respectively.
