Council Member Fernando Cabrera at Monday's hearing (photo: William Alatriste)
NEW YORK - The City Council Committee on Juvenile Justice met Monday morning to hear testimony from community agencies offering alternatives to detention for youth who commit minor crimes.
The discussion, organized into three panels, covered a less talked about area of the justice system: the one involving individuals under 16 years of age who commit low-to-moderate-level offenses, such as shoplifting, fighting in school, or smoking marijuana. Council members, led by committee chair Fernando Cabrera, called the oversight hearing to assess both programming and the process by which the City is contracting with service providers.
In a three-hour session, representatives of several organizations based throughout New York City shared their visions for a progressive juvenile justice system in which young offenders, in particular those who are not charged with violent felonies, would not be confined in detention centers but rehabilitated through a series of community programs.
The statements of service providers who contract with the City echoed and expanded on those made by emissaries of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ), who testified to start the hearing.
Cabrera and other committee members liked what they heard, but also pressed for more information, especially around the City's system for evaluating and contracting with providers.
"We are working together to brainstorm and implement reforms to steer nonviolent youth offenders in particular away from detention and into programs and services which we believe will reduce recidivism," said City Council Member Fernando Cabrera, who chairs the committee. One thing that became evident during the hearing, though, is that it is less than clear which providers are the best at limiting repeat offenses by the young people they serve.
Cabrera and other council members asked representatives of the de Blasio administration about the selection criteria the City uses to recruit new service providers or retain ongoing partners, and how the performance of their services are monitored over time.
MOCJ reps replied that vendors are chosen based on their proposals, in which they outline their experience and efficiency in the field of juvenile justice, as well as their connection with local courts. Much of the data on the effectiveness of programming is reliant on self-reporting at this point, though, which raises red flags for council members and others interested in assessing if the right providers are being given contracts.
Rev. Wendy Andrea Calderón-Payne, the Executive Director at Bronx Connect, a community-based alternative-to-incarceration program for court-involved youth, pointed at her organization's low recidivism rate of 7 percent to prove that the facility she runs is effective. Bronx Connect, however, did not have its contract with the City renewed through the most recent round of procurement.
Calderon-Payne stressed how her center is a source of jobs for the community around it, pointing out the importance of hiring personnel coming from the same environment as the children they serve. "We come from our youth. My staff grew up where our youth grew up," Calderón-Payne said, "and that's one of the reasons I feel like we had this overwhelming success."
At the hearing, Cabrera, who represents part of the Bronx, appeared focused, in part, on the City's shift away from Bronx Connect. He pressed MOCJ reps to clarify the process by which they selected their five major contracts. The City insisted that a fair process is being used.
There are currently five centers around New York City, one in each borough, which are coordinated by the City and that have the capability of hosting children coming with Family Court sentences. These offenders are under 16 years of age and while they have mandated sentences, they do not live at the facilities, thus "alternatives to detention."
Existing facilities are relatively small. The largest ones, located in Brooklyn and The Bronx, can each host 50 children at a time; the smallest one, in Staten Island, only 15.
But the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice has been trying to open up bids for a larger number of providers with the aim of increasing the total capacity of enrollment for youth at risk.
Alex Crohn, General Counsel at Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, said the entire network of providers is currently able to handle nearly 600 children across the five boroughs every year.
Michelle Sviridoff, the Deputy Criminal Justice Coordinator, said the possibility of raising the age of criminality from 16 to 18 - which Governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing - would bring hundreds of additional youth to the system.
"We think it's important to maintain the capacity we started with," Sviridoff said, "at a time in which the demands for these programs may be growing."
In New York, one of the only two states that tries youth in adult criminal courts once they turn 16, the consequences of a minor offense can dramatically affect the future of an adolescent, often in grim ways.
Recently, Gov. Cuomo announced new legislation that would gradually raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18 by 2018, a step toward a juvenile justice system overhaul he claims will reduce recidivism and save state taxpayer money.
The reform would re-route hundreds of children involved in criminal courts to family courts, which will then assign them to programs based in special centers for at-risk youth.
In such centers, children are monitored in strict coordination with their schools and their families will have a role in the rehabilitation.
Although reform legislation is likely to encounter opposition from a number of State Senate Republicans, elected officials in New York City seems to be in tune on a progressive agenda that would save hundreds of children an experience behind bars.
"In the Council, we are overwhelmingly for raising the age," Cabrera told Gotham Gazette after the meeting. Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito have both come out in support of raising the age, as have many other city electeds.
Community-based providers who offer alternatives to detention believe the issue of the age of criminality is crucial in reforming a system widely considered outdated and ineffective.
"We forget that 16 to 17 year olds are not adults yet, and treating them as adults doesn't help anybody. It just makes things worse," said Sally Sanchez, the director of Queens Engagement Strategies for Teens, an organization offering after-school programs for youth at risk. "What we do is helping children before they get further involved in the system."
[Related: With 'Raise the Age,' Cuomo Continues Overhaul of Juvenile Justice System]
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by Marco Poggio, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
