Q&A raise the age: Giselle Castro headshot - young woman with short brown hair wearing off-white suit

Q&A: Exalt’s Gisele Castro on the importance of New York’s “raise the age” law 

Before Gisele Castro became executive director of Exalt, a New York nonprofit working to stem what she and others refer to as the school-to-prison pipeline, she spent 25 years at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Service. There, for adults convicted of crimes involving crack cocaine, she worked to arrange alternatives to incarceration. Read our interview with this "staunch supporter of New York state's 'raise-the-age' law."

medical treatments for substance abuse in New York jails: woman holding "safe consumption now!" sign

Medical treatments for substance use disorders are slated for all New York jails and prisons

While jailed on drug charges at New York City’s Rikers Island in 1994, Marilyn Reyes received medical treatment to curb her heroin addiction. But once Reyes, then in her 20s, was convicted and transferred to an upstate prison, she stopped getting the medications prescribed to help her overcome what's since been labeled as opioid use disorder. “It was the most traumatizing, horrible experience I ever had,” said Reyes, now co-director of Peer Network of New York, which provides, among other services, needle exchanges to reduce some of the health hazards of using illegal drugs. 

portrait of early COVID period in New York. New Jersey; volunteers sit after day of work distributing goods

Portrait Of Early COVID Period In New York, New Jersey

(SLIDESHOW)
When the COVID-19 pandemic first broke in New York City this spring, the most vulnerable populations were at the bottom of a long list of people who desperately needed help during the first few months of business and school closures, shortages of personal protective equipment, food and household necessities.

NY Orthodox Jewish Teenagers Charge COVID-19 Is Bringing Up Anti-Semitism

NEW YORK — They all had disturbing stories, and they all had a familiar ring to them. 

Yakov, who declined to give his last name, was waiting in line at the Whitehall Terminal in Manhattan waiting to take a leisurely ferry trip across the bay to Staten Island when he was told to get out by other passengers. He was wearing a mask, he said, but that didn’t matter as much as his conservative garb. 

“They’re looking for an excuse to hate us, and they found it in the virus,” the 16-year-old said. “The pandemic has given them the freedom to say what they always have wanted.” 

Yehuda Weinstock took his children upstate to go apple picking. “We were treated like we had the plague,” he said. ‘What do you say to your children?” 

Coronavirus and the fear it has stoked across the city after bodies were piled up outside hospitals in the spring has led to the resurgence of a social virus. Scarred by daily experiences of anti-Semitism, Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn fear the pandemic and the restrictions that come with it will incite hatred and violence toward them.