Public defenders who help their clients access mental health care, public benefits and drug treatment have reduced incarceration rates in the Bronx, according to a new study released Monday.

Researchers with the Rand Corporation compared this so-called holistic model used by the Bronx Defenders with the Legal Aid Society's more traditional practice. The study looked at cases during a 10-year period between 2000 and 2014 (some years were not included because of problems with court data). The Bronx criminal court randomly assigns defendants to Bronx Defenders and Legal Aid lawyers, a prime condition for researchers.

Co-author Paul Heaton, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said the Bronx Defenders' holistic model had no impact on conviction rates. But their clients received less jail time.

"Clients were about 16 percent less likely to get sentenced to jail and their sentence lengths were 24 percent shorter," he explained, adding up to 1.1 million fewer days sentenced to jail over the course of the study.

Plea rates were the same for clients of Bronx Defenders and Legal Aid.

Heaton suggested that a holistic defense model is better able to convey a client's life circumstances to prosecutors and judges, who are then more willing to accept alternatives to detention such as drug treatment.

Another notable finding: recidivism rates did not go up for clients served by the Bronx Defenders when compared to those served by Legal Aid. 

Justine Olderman, executive director of Bronx Defenders, said she was excited by that finding.  

"One would expect that when you are reducing incarceration rates and reducing incarceration lengths, that over time you would in fact see a higher recidivism rate," but she said, "we can in fact create a fairer and more just system that does not increase re-arrest rates."

She explained that criminal defense lawyers at Bronx Defenders also work closely in teams with civil lawyers and social workers. When defendants go to court, she said, judges see a fuller picture of their lives.

"It shows that it's actually transforming the system itself by reducing incarceration one client at a time," she added. 

Bronx Defenders was one of several new defender groups that formed in the late 1990s after a strike by the Legal Aid Society. The new defender groups were viewed by Legal Aid lawyers as as rivals willing to break from the union. Bronx Defenders was much smaller and had the ability to try new models like holistic support, while Legal Aid was coping with deep budget cuts imposed by mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration. 

In response to the new report, the Legal Aid Society pointed out that much of it covers the so-called broken windows era, when arrest rates were higher and so were caseloads for their attorneys.

“The report released today comparing outcomes between our Bronx Criminal Defense Trial Office and the Bronx Defenders might create the impression that somehow one organization is better than the other," the organization said, in a statement. "This is a conclusion that we simply do not agree with, nor is it helpful in accurately framing the issues that affect public defender and legal services organizations here in New York City and across the country."

The organization said it's important to address high caseloads, a lack of resources and funding to ensure high quality, experienced litigation for all public defenders - plus wraparound services to clients.

Heaton noted that Legal Aid has beefed up its own holistic supports in recent years, thanks to additional state funding that brought down caseload rates for attorneys and that the organization has hired more social workers. He said the two groups are becoming more alike now that Legal Aid has the means. 

"What we hope that the research does it that it encourages other jurisdictions to experiment with this model," Heaton said, adding that this study is the biggest of its kind. He said he hoped the solutions identified in the Bronx could reduce mass incarceration in other cities.