Founded in 1933, The Osborne Association (Osborne) currently serves 10,000 people annually at every stage of the criminal legal system through more than 40 programs. It provides alternatives to incarceration and detention, reentry, family reunification, outpatient treatment and other services in the South Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn, Buffalo and Newburgh and a permanent supportive housing site in Brooklyn. It works on Rikers Island, in NYC courts and at 35 NY state prisons, some of which include family visiting centers and parenting and parole preparation programs for the incarcerated population. It also provides youth development programming for children of incarcerated parents and young people. The advocacy team promotes policy reforms that challenge punitive sentencing and parole policies, expand opportunities for housing and promote the well-being of older adults in the criminal legal system and children of incarcerated parents. This grant provides general operating support to Osborne as it continues to expand its impact and achieve its goals. 

A person can serve a whole life sentence without ever being challenged to examine and make amends for their harmful acts. This project addresses that gap, challenging and supporting incarcerated people to consider their specific roles in their crimes and take responsibility for the harm they have done. The project’s curriculum was developed by a team led by a restorative justice practitioner and crime survivor as well as a person convicted of homicide-related crimes. Participants reflect on the choices and forces that brought them to where they are, investigate and heal from their own experience of being harmed, and accept full responsibility for the harm they have done. They also plan for meaningful, reparative action, either in the community after reentry, or in the prisons where they will remain, in order to use the potential remaining in their lives to do good in the world.