Links to New York City-related sites
(Governmental and non-governmental)
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John Jay College of Criminal Justice, named for John Jay of NY (1745-1829), first U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, developed from a program for NYPD officers, established in 1955 in conjunction with the Baruch School of Business and Public Administration.
 The college's Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics, the only nonprofit university center of its kind in the U.S., fosters greater concern for ethical issues among criminal justice practitioners and scholars. The college's Criminal Justice Research Center is an applied research organization established in 1975 so that members of the academic community can respond to the needs of criminal justice practitioners. Among academic programs available at the college is Correctional Studies.
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St. John's University offers degree programs in criminal justice studies at its College of Professional Studies, its largest college. The Criminal Justice Program's director is Dr. Tom Ward, who formerly headed the NYC Correction Academy and was a founding NY Correction History Society board trustee.
Students who have successfully completed
training courses at the New York City Police,
Correction, Transit or Housing Police
Academy or at the Nassau County or New
York State Police Academy may be entitled
to receive credit toward the B.S. degree.
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Vera Institute of Justice was founded in 1961 by Louis Schweitzer, a prosperous chemical engineer who learned NYC jails were very overcrowded because many, unable to post bail, were held long periods on minor charges at public expense.
 He recruited Herbert Sturz, later the Institute's first director, and together they organized the Manhattan Bail Project to show that people with little money but with verifiable community ties could be released safely while awaiting trial. To operate this project, Schweitzer created the Vera Foundation, naming it after his mother. It became the Vera Institute of Justice in 1966, the year President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the first reform of the federal bail system since 1789, crediting Vera for leading the way.
Former NYC DOC and Probation Dept. Commissioner Michael P. Jacobson joined Vera as its fourth director in January 2005. He serves as chair of the NYC Criminal Justice Agency. He was the NY Correctiobal History Society's first president.
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Osborne Association In 1915, to prepare himself to become a warden, Thomas Mott Osborne spent a week in Auburn prison disguised as a prisoner, living just as the other inmates. He left committed to turning America's prisons from "human scrap heaps into human repair shops." First as warden of Sing Sing and later as founder of the Mutual Welfare League and the National Society of Penal Information, he led the prison reform movement.
 After his death in 1931, the Osborne Association was established to continue his work. It serves more than 5,000 people each year through programs in the South Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Sing Sing Correctional Facility.
The Association's executive director Elizabeth Gaynes is a founding member of the NY Correction History Society (NYCHS). John Rakis, a current NYCHS board trustee, is a former Osborne Association deputy director. Anthony R. Smith, an Association board member, is a current NYCHS board trustee. Barbara A. Margolis, another Association board member, was a founding NYCHS board trustee.
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Correctional Association of New York orignated as the Prison Association of New York in 1844 when leading NYC citizens convened a meeting to address concerns about prison conditions and the lack of community support services for ex-inmates.
 Two years later, the State Legislature granted the organization authority to inspect prisons and to report its findings and recommendations to policy makers and the public. The Association officially changed its name to the Correctional Association of New York on March 1, 1961. Catherine M. Abate, former NYC Correction Commissioner, is a CANY vice chair.
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The Fortune Society. In 1967, the off-Broadway play by ex-offender John Herbert and produced by David Rothenberg, "Fortune and Men's Eyes," dramatized prison life in a way that
 angered and electrified audiences. Later in 1967, a small group under Rothenberg's leadership formed the Fortune Society, staffed mostly by ex-offenders to help prisoners, ex-offenders, and those facing incarceration. The Society was recently awarded a federal grant to provide outreach and intervention services to justice-involved men, women and adolescents who are substance abusers. It will be working with NYC Correction’s Substance Abuse Intervention Division, Columbia University’s AIDS Education and Training Center, United Bronx Parents, and inmates recently released from state prisons and city jails.
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Center on Crime, Communities & Culture, based in mid-Manhattan and associated with international
 philanthropist George Soros and his Open Society Institute, seeks out and supports innovative criminal justice programs and provides academic and research fellowships in criminal justice.
- The New York City Department of Correction's own web site
 includes a brief historical overview that links to the NYCHS History Menu web page that, in turn, accesses dozens of essays about the agency and its antecedents in nearly 375 years of cells and inmates since Fort Amsterdam was founded. A partial list:
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