New York Approves Close-to-Home Care for Teen Offenders
Late Tuesday night, the New York Senate, Assembly and Governor agreed on the 2012-13 budget, which includes an innovative new juvenile justice program.
The “Close to Home” initiative, which would allow New York City to place low and mid-level juvenile delinquents in treatment programs in or near New York City, rather than in facilities hundreds of miles away in upstate New York, was included in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s original budget proposal. The Senate and Assembly, however, first had to approve the measure and pass budgets that included it.
Beginning in September of 2012, youth otherwise placed in non-secure facilities will now be placed in New York City-administered programs and facilities. Youth from limited-secure facilities will be placed in City programs beginning in April of 2013.
These categories of youth in New York are usually tried for misdemeanors or non-violent felonies. When they are sent to facilities far upstate, they are often placed a great distance from their families and communities. This distance from support networks correlates with dismal outcomes—youth recidivism among offenders released from state facilities is over 80 percent after three years. Furthermore, the cost exceeds $250,000 per year, giving taxpayers little return on a high investment.
New York Courts Revisit Juvenile Justice
NEW YORK, N.Y. — On a recent Thursday afternoon in the shadow of Yankee Stadium, in the South Bronx, five 16- and 17-year-old boys met outside the Bronx Criminal Court building to complete court-mandated community service. After appearing before a judge for nonviolent offenses such as shoplifting and graffiti, they’d been assigned to Bronx Community Solutions, an alternative sentencing organization attached to the criminal court, for an afternoon of cleaning up the sidewalks around a recreation center.
Under New York law, most offenders at this age share community service duties with seasoned adult criminals, because at 16, they are automatically charged as adults. These boys were different because they were part of a judicial pilot program that separates 16-and-17-year-old offenders from the rest of the adult criminal population, and also from younger teens. They have been given the chance to do their community service in a custom-designed rehabilitative environment.
In nine counties across New York State, these pilot programs, known as adolescent diversion parts, or ADPs, are the judiciary’s response to legislative inaction on raising the age of criminal responsibility from age 16 to the national standard of 18. Currently, New York and North Carolina are the only two states that automatically charge 16-year-olds as adults, despite the mounting body of clinical research showing that a 16-year-old’s brain capacity is not fully matured. In fact, when New York created its family court system in 1962, the age of adult responsibility was arbitrarily set at 16 with the understanding that the legislature would quickly revisit the issue.
Now, 50 years later, the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, is taking a two-pronged approach to changing the way New York handles the 50,000 16- and 17-year-olds arrested in the state each year. For the long term, Lippman is pushing a legislative proposal designed by the state’s sentencing commission to raise the age of criminal responsibility and set up adolescent courts to exclusively serve 16- and 17-year olds charged with nonviolent crimes. Most other states have juvenile courts, but none has a program specifically targeted at the 16- and 17-year-old population.
Budget Crises, High-Needs Kids and Juvenile Justice Reforms
As California and the nation continue to struggle with budget crises, creative and cost-effective approaches in the provision of services for high-needs youthful offender populations are becoming increasingly necessary.
Leaders in California, Georgia and New York have recently called for reform or “realignment” of their out-of-date state-run juvenile justice systems. While the urgency for reform in many states is a result of strained state budgets, it serves as an opportunity to engage juvenile justice stakeholders to restructure their juvenile justice systems in a more efficient and effective manner.
One population to pay particular attention to when planning for juvenile justice realignment is the disproportionate number of youth with mental health needs in juvenile facilities, known as the “crossover caseload.”
These highest-needs youth have historically been neglected during times of reform, when in fact they are the youth most in need of quality, individualized care. As a result of 1980s mental health system reform, juvenile justice systems, in effect, replaced public psychiatric hospitals in the care of mentally ill youth; despite the fact that the juvenile justice system lacks the resources to provide adequate services for this population.
Although rates of juvenile incarceration have been declining, a disproportionate number of youth in this crossover caseload are still being confined, between 50-70 percent nationally and 42 percent in California, according to conservative estimates.
New York Governor seeks to realign juvenile justice system
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York recently unveiled his budget plan to policymakers, and included significant juvenile justice reforms in the plan.
After previously closing some of the state’s juvenile lockups due to their ineffectiveness, Governor Cuomo is now asking lawmakers to close additional facilities and to send lower risk youths from New York City to facilities back in their hometown.
New York’s juvenile facilities are expensive and they often don’t work. Right on Crime has previously noted the extraordinary recidivism rates for youth exiting state lockup facilities in New York: over 80% return to a facility of some sort within ten years, and costs stretch over $250,000 per year.
Under Governor Cuomo’s plan, youth currently in non-secure facilities would begin receiving programming closer to home in the next biennium; in the 2014-2015 biennium, youth in limited-secure facilities would be transitioned closer to home.
Harlem Youth Court takes on juvenile justice
It’s a familiar courtroom scene: An advocate scribbling on a notepad prepares her closing statement. A judge presides, pounding her gavel to bring the hearing to order. She turns to the offender, a young man being tried for assault, and asks,
“Do you swear to tell the truth?”
“Yes,” he replies.
This is when things start to look different from a traditional courtroom. A juror stands, thanks him for attending, and says, “We just want to let you know we’re not here to judge you or criticize you.”
The juror, named Milagros, is a high school student. Everyone participating– judge, jury, advocate, clerk and offender – is under 18. At the Harlem Youth Court, kids who have committed low-level offenses can avoid formal prosecution and instead tell their side of a story to a jury of their peers.
