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Remembering Herb Sturz: Pioneering Social Entrepreneur


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Herb Sturz, left, and Jonathan Lippman, one of the authors


Herb Sturz, one of the original social entrepreneurs, died this month. 

Herb was equal parts bright-eyed idealist and sharp-eyed power broker. All of the obituaries and tributes that will follow in the days to come will no doubt detail his remarkable resume. 

Herb was a man of many hats. The founder of the modern bail reform movement. The spark behind the creation of numerous nonprofit organizations, including the Vera Institute of Justice. Deputy Mayor and City Planning Commissioner under Mayor Ed Koch. Member of the New York Times editorial board. Real estate developer. Philanthropist working for the Open Society Foundations. And many more.

Has anyone ever touched so many different professions? Herb knew the power players in a wide variety of fields.

Like many movers and shakers, Herb’s success was built, in part, on the strength of his social network. But Herb was much more than a man with a golden rolodex. 

We had the pleasure of working with Herb on various criminal justice reform projects over the past three decades. In unguarded moments, we would often seek to ascertain the secret of Herb’s success. He was obviously a man of intellect and ambition. But the truth is that New York City is full of people like that. Herb had something else.

Over the years, we came to realize that Herb’s two superpowers were creativity and humility. He was a man of a thousand ideas. Not all of them were great, but his batting average was better than anyone else we can think of.  

Crucially, his imagination was paired with a willingness to work behind the scenes and let others receive the glory. Harry Truman is credited with saying “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Herb was the living embodiment of this insight. This was a key factor in his ability to convince powerful people to run with his ideas.

Herb’s creativity and humility were much in evidence in the last great fight of his career: the battle to close the notorious jail complex on Rikers Island. 

It was Herb’s idea to create a blue-ribbon commission to study the idea of closing Rikers back in 2016.  This wasn’t exactly a new idea for Herb – he had tried to get rid of Rikers before, back in the Koch administration, without success. This time around, he went to Mayor Bill de Blasio and then-New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and asked them to authorize a commission. 

Mark-Viverito launched the commission with great fanfare at her state of the city address. We were in the audience watching with Herb that day – he had also asked each of us to be part of the Commission.  

At that point, closing Rikers Island seemed like a progressive fever dream rather than a real possibility.  There was, to be sure, a vibrant grassroots movement, led by formerly-incarcerated activists, arguing for closure and building public support. But most public officials were cool to the idea, and the Mayor questioned whether closing Rikers was logistically feasible. In normal times, this lack of institutional support would spell doom for any new criminal justice reform.

Given this reality, why did we sign on to Herb’s scheme? Because Herb was the one doing the asking. Herb was willing to put his time and effort and reputation on the line. That immediately convinced us that the fight might be winnable. 

Having brought the team together, Herb then made his next crucial move: he faded to the background, allowing us to step forward to organize the commission and lead it forward. He knew better than to micro-manage, but he was always available with advice whenever asked.

Five years later, the effort to close Rikers Island is still ongoing. But enormous progress has been made. The Mayor and the City Council have both endorsed a plan to shutter the inhumane jails. It will remain for the next Mayor to carry this plan to fruition.

However things turn out, we are grateful that Herb asked us to participate in his plan to close Rikers Island. It was, and is, an audacious effort to make the world a better place on behalf of a population that is often voiceless in policy debates. We hope the next generation of Herb Sturzs is waiting in the wings to take up the battle.

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Jonathan Lippman is a former chief judge of New York State and of counsel at Latham & Watkins LLP. Greg Berman is the former director of the Center for Court Innovation. They are both members of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, which Lippman chairs.

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Gender Violence is on the Manhattan DA Ballot


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Voters voting (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


New Yorkers are choosing the next Manhattan District Attorney, who will profoundly shape prosecutions of gender-based violent crimes like sexual assault, domestic violence, trafficking, stalking, and hate crimes targeting women of color. It is essential that the next Manhattan DA combat the scourge of mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, and at the same time combat the under-prosecution of violent and predatory gender-based crimes. In the U.S., 49 out of 50 rape cases do not result in jail time for the perpetrator. We need the next Manhattan DA to lead in a better direction.  

Yet some of the candidates have taken positions that would leave victims of gender-based violence even less protected than they are now. Here are just a few examples for Manhattan Democratic voters to consider.

Domestic violence
One survey asked if candidates would dismiss charges any time there are cross-complaints (two people accuse each other of violence) and the parties say they do not want to go forward with a criminal case. But false counter-allegations are a classic abuser tactic to terrify victims into dropping charges. Good prosecutors scrutinize cross complaints carefully, proceed with caution when a victim proposes to drop charges, and assess victim intimidation and lethality risk.

A blanket promise to dismiss cross complaints would nullify the victim’s access to criminal justice protection whenever a batterer strategically files a retaliatory charge. Candidates who promised to dismiss charges when there are cross-complaints included Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Diana Florence, Eliza Orlins, and Dan Quart. The candidates who answered “No” to this question were Tali Farhadian Weinstein and Lucy Lang. The eighth Democratic candidate, Liz Crotty, did not participate in the survey.

Sentencing
Multiple candidates in the race agreed that they would “never seek more than the minimum sentence.” Even for progressives like me who want to see incarceration reduced for many offenses, this pledge is extremely problematic when applied to violent crimes. If a serial child molester charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse in the first degree has no prior conviction (which many serial abusers—think Larry Nasser—do not), the minimum sentence is probation. Yet probation would be wildly irresponsible in such a case.

For countless cases of rape, domestic abuse, and other forms of violence, the minimum sentence would likewise be totally inappropriate. Survivors need prosecutors to tailor sentencing requests to the merits of each case, not adopt a one-size-fits-all policy. Candidates who agreed they would “never seek more than the minimum sentence” included Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang, Eliza Orlins, and Dan Quart. The candidate who answered “No” to this question was Tali Farhadian Weinstein. Crotty again did not participate.

Resources
Some candidates pledged to cut the resources of the Manhattan DA office by 50%. Yet prosecutions of gender-based violence are labor intensive and are already under-resourced. We need the next DA to redistribute precious resources so that prosecutions of gender-based violence receive the investigative work, the expert witnesses, the forensic testing, the technology support, the trauma-informed approaches, and the prosecutor time and attention they need.

Candidates who agreed to cut the office’s resources by 50% included Tahanie Aboushi and Eliza Orlins. Candidates who answered “No” to this question were Alvin Bragg, Tali Farhadian Weinstein, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang, and Dan Quart. Crotty did not participate.

Arrest policy
Candidates were asked if they support a “mandatory arrest” policy for felony domestic violence. These are cases in which the abuser has caused serious physical injury, used a weapon, or violated a stay-away order of protection – truly dangerous situations. The policy instructs police officers to arrest assailants, not try then and there to “reconcile” the parties. It was enacted to stop officers from telling batterers to ‘take a walk around the block’ to cool off, leaving victims in danger. Candidates who opposed the arrest policy were Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, and Dan Quart. Candidates who supported the arrest policy were Liz Crotty, Tali Farhadian Weinstein, and Diana Florence.   

The next Manhattan DA needs a bold, smart plan for combating gender-based violence. A report by Reform the Sex Crimes Unit evaluates and links to the candidates’ platforms; voters can assess the thoughtfulness and detail of each candidate’s approach. New Yorkers need the next Manhattan DA to show the world that we can reduce incarceration for non-violent crimes and combat the abuses of the criminal justice system, while at the same time protecting survivors of domestic violence and increasing the prosecution rates for rape. Let’s keep survivors of gender-based violence at the center as we build the New York City we want. 

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Jane Manning is an attorney and advocate for survivors of sexual assault.

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The Next Mayor Must Stick with the Plan to Close The Boat, and Rikers


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A rally for closing Rikers (photo: @CLOSErikers)


The Vernon C Bain Correctional Facility, known as The Barge, or The Boat, has been getting some attention recently. Ava Duvernay and Laura Poitras recently discovered it, and mayoral candidate Eric Adams said he wants to sink it. But Bronx residents have been calling for the closure of this modern day slave ship for years. We do so because it is an affront to human rights, and our values. While we welcome the support, this recent attention is concerning. 

The closure of The Boat requires more than tweets and talk. It requires a plan and thankfully, we have one that was hard-won by impacted Bronx residents and their allies. We need to move forward with that plan - the Close Rikers plan - including the replacement jail in the Bronx.

Consider this - if The Boat closed today, the people there would be moved to the notorious Rikers Island jail complex. Moving them right now would be especially cruel as we head into the summer, since The Boat has air conditioning (that works at least occasionally), and the available units on Rikers have none. 

What many New Yorkers don’t know, or have chosen to ignore, is that all of the Department of Correction facilities in New YorK City are unfit for humans. Let’s review the options. There is a penal colony on toxic land (Rikers); a prison ship (The Boat); closed jails in Queens and Brooklyn that each have insufficient square feet per incarcerated person to meet state standards (and also, lack air conditioning); or the cramped and decrepit “Tombs” in lower Manhattan. 

Throughout this campaign season, nearly every mayoral candidate has said Rikers should close, but detailed plans to do it have been much more scarce even as they question the current plan. What candidates aren’t promising is an end to all policing, prosecution, and incarceration in the Bronx, or New York City. This is why every Bronx voter should know that when we oppose the replacement jail in the Bronx, we are approving the human rights violations on Rikers and The Boat.

So while incarceration continues in some form in our city, the question is where, and under what conditions?

We know that we can continue to reduce incarceration, but we must do so while addressing dangerous and dehumanizing conditions for people who are detained. That’s why we support the Close Rikers plan. This plan replaces 17,500 jail beds in 14 inhumane facilities, with 3,300 beds in four facilities in the boroughs. This plan closes all the jails on Rikers and The Boat by 2027.

Reducing New York City’s jail population to less than 3,300 people, the lowest it's been in 100 years, will require that we make investments to strengthen the Bronx, and other communities unfairly burdened by criminalization. We have both spent most of our lives fighting for those investments, including NYCHA repairs, violence-prevention programs, career-track job training, community counseling and mentorship, transit improvements, environmental remediation, and more. 

As members of the Bronx Neighborhood Advisory Committee, we worked with the City Council to secure commitments to specific investments in connection with the Close Rikers plan. Those investments are a necessary starting point to help us catch up to the rest of the city. These investments focus on community development, providing care and the prevention of crime, instead of policing and punishment. We understand that this plan doesn’t end incarceration completely. But when we take a community first approach we can incarcerate fewer people, in conditions that recognize their humanity is not terminated when they are sent to jail.

The Bronx can do just that, by securing the investments we deserve and moving forward with the replacement jail. Every day that our family and neighbors spend on Rikers or The Boat compounds their trauma, and we cannot leave them there until we restructure our entire society. 

That’s why we’ll be fighting to make sure the next Mayor moves forward with the plan to close Rikers and The Boat on the fastest possible timeline. We invite everyone who is serious about human rights to join us.

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Ramona Ferreyra is a Bronx community leader and owner of Ojala Threads. Reverend Wendy Calderón-Payne is the Executive Director of BronxConnect. On Twitter @ramonathemona & @BronxConnect.

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