News

Arzu Yetim Gives Back

In 2016, after five years in New York State prison, Arzu Yetim was in a work-release program at Edgecombe Correctional Facility in Upper Manhattan. She was committed to returning and staying home and knew she needed to find a job to do that. Arzu enrolled in Osborne’s job training program and was an eager and focused participant from her first day.  

“The first thing she said to me was, 'I want to be a flagger,'" said program coordinator Jenny Santiago. Arzu says she had been interested in construction flagging since she was a child. “When I was little, I remember driving by the guys out there and telling my dad I wanted to do that someday.” Though Osborne didn’t offer flagger certification at the time, Jenny arranged funding to allow Arzu to complete a flagging certification course.

Osborne Welcomes Two New Board Members

The Osborne Association– a New York-based policy advocacy and direct-service organization dedicated to transforming the criminal justice system – welcomed 20-year New York Times reporter Esther Fein and L+M Development Partners Vice President of Community Affairs Yasmin Cornelius to its Board of Directors this month. Both new members share a deep-seated commitment to enacting meaningful and humane criminal justice reform and offer the organization extensive experience in public service, community development and media relations to further Osborne’s mission. 

Osborne hosts NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer for Bail Roundtable

More than one hundred Osborne participants and staff filled our cafeteria in mid-June for a roundtable discussion with NYC Comptroller Scott M. Stringer about his call to eliminate commercial bail-bonds. 

Statement on Family Separation and Detention

Over the past 10 years, the Osborne Association’s New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents (NYCIP) has brought together government agencies, and community and faith-based organizations to develop solutions to address the harms of parent-child separation that result from a parent’s arrest and incarceration. For decades, we have offered programs that maintain the parent-child bond during incarceration, and we have brought hundreds of children to visit their incarcerated parents. As an 85-year-old organization, we are deeply aware of the damaging effects of separation on children, we are horrified by the current DOJ policy of taking children from their parents at the US border and we join those calling for the immediate end of this unconscionable practice. The President’s recent Executive Order is a start but is not enough. The more than 2,000 children currently suffering from being separated need to be urgently reunited with their parents and a standing solution and firm, unequivocal commitment to keeping families together is needed.