New York City launches a Queens pilot to speed 730 fitness-to-stand-trial evaluations
In September 2018 New York City's Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice and NYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services announced a pilot at the Queens court's forensic evaluation clinic aimed at speeding 730 evaluations, the fitness-to-stand-trial exams ordered under New York's Criminal Procedure Law. Targets were 14 business days for felony cases and 7 for misdemeanors.
The release cited an August 2016 city analysis finding that defendants ordered to take these exams spend almost three times as long in custody as others charged with similar offenses, with evaluation time a main driver. It reported 84 streamlined evaluations since the pilot began in June, and 1,497 such exams citywide in 2017, 473 of them in Queens.
The program was developed with prosecutors, defenders, court administration and city hospitals, and was presented as part of the push to reduce jail time and eventually close Rikers Island. This is a government announcement, not independent reporting; it is included as a primary document on evaluation delays and a city-level fix.
Source: Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice and NYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services Launch Pilot Program to Streamline Court-Ordered Psychiatric Evaluations in Queens — NYC Health + Hospitals
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