NEW YORK | BY JOSEPH AX

The fatal shooting of a New York City police officer on Tuesday has turned a spotlight on a court-mandated drug treatment program that kept the accused killer out of jail as part of a national effort to find alternatives to prison for non-violent offenders.

… But advocates for such programs, intended in part to decrease overcrowding in prisons, warned against drawing conclusions based on one incident.

“It’s all about reducing probabilities,” said Jeffrey Butts, director of the research and evaluation center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. “That doesn’t mean that things won’t happen.”

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