Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/new-york/page/12/)
NEW YORK -- Getting shot was probably a critical turning point in Ray Tebout’s life, he says. It was 1990. Tebout had just turned 16 and was living on the streets of the South Bronx, selling drugs and doing his best to survive. And then some guy had to go and shoot him in the foot. The day of the shooting Tebout was on the corner selling drugs when “a guy wanted something from me,” he said.
NEW YORK – Community was the word on everyone’s lips at the Symposium on Crime in America at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. More police engagement with the community is needed to win the war against gangs, and communities need to be more receptive to those returning from prison, according to experts speaking at the conference. According to FBI data provided by Jeffrey Butts, Director of the John Jay Center on Research and Evaluation, violent crime arrests are at a 30-year low. But "as violence has dropped," Butts said, "arrests for other crimes increased since the 1990s." One reason may be that gangs are still a serious problem across the country and according to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, gang violence has changed.
NEW YORK - On Monday, the first day of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America, held at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a standing-room-only crowd of criminal justice experts, academics, advocates and journalists spilled out of the small conference room and into the large, modern glass and metal entry hall. They were there to discuss how to fix the United States’ rapidly growing prison population, among other problems.
The conference, titled “The Problem That Won’t Go Away: How drugs, race and mass incarceration have distorted American justice (and what to do about it)," featured six panels over two days tackling areas of the criminal justice system that, the panelists say, are ripe for reform and critically important. But the two subjects discussed most were drugs and prisons. Panels Monday included “America’s Addictions,” "Gangs, Drugs and Urban Violence” and “Crime and Criminal Justice Trends 2011-2012.”
Within the juvenile justice field, Dr. Jeffrey Butts, Director of the John Jay Center on Research and Evaluation said there was some good news. “National trends in youth crime show that juvenile arrests are down since the 90s,” he said.
As New York families gather over Thanksgiving turkeys, and count their blessings and good fortune, they should include in their circle of gratitude three well-known New York judges. These judges have taken a firm position, and offered their help, to raise the age of criminal responsibility, thus keeping thousands of 16 and 17 year old misdemeanants in juvenile court with appropriate services for youth. Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, former Chief Judge Judith Kaye, and former criminal court judge Michael Corriero deserve that thanks. After all, last month we survived another Halloween night – you know, when adults act like kids and kids dress like adults. Just the thought of that should remind everyone how artificial and arbitrary the distinction between adult and child can be.
New York’s top judge is calling on the state to break with a long-held practice of trying all 16- and 17-year olds as adults and instead to seek ways to rehabilitate them. Judge Jonathan Lippman, the chief of the state court of appeals, wants 16- and 17-year-olds accused of less serious crimes to be transferred to family courts. It is a move that would require a reorganization of the state’s juvenile justice system and would have to be approved by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and the state Legislature. While the state Assembly is controlled by Democrats, the Senate is majority Republican. Democratic lawmakers in New York have been generally supportive of reforming the measure in the past, while Republicans have for the most part opposed it.
In a speech in Harlem on Sunday, New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo pointed out that the city’s gun violence has been rising, but instead of calling for more tough-on-crime measures he pushed for closing some state prisons. In the speech covered by the New York Daily News,Cuomo asked the audience, "guess how much it costs per year to keep a person in a juvenile justice facility? Over $200,000 per year. $200,000! You could've sent that person to Harvard University and it would be cheaper.”
Cuomo went on to say the money would be better spent at the community level and on violence prevention programs.
"We're going to take that money and provide it in community- based services so the problem doesn't happen in the first place," he said.
British papers are full of news stories and commentary about the role social media has played in the riots that rocked London and other major cities. Prime Minister David Cameron’s calls to shut down some sites have been met with a barrage of criticism, such as this op-ed in the Guardian. Others have attacked the government’s overall response, including its attack on social media outlets and the deployment of water cannons comparing the aggressive behavior to the Mubarak regime’s initial response to the Egyptian uprising. The Telegraph has a stream of comments on its web site, some from former police officers, critical of the police for not being aggressive enough, including their hesitation in shutting down the Blackberry and other cellular networks. The Blackberry network was reportedly instrumental in maintaining anonymity for many protestors and organizing riots.
As many as one in five child welfare cases in New York City involve a parent with a mental health diagnoses, attorneys estimate, which creates challenges for parents, children and caseworkers, challenges that advocates believe aren't being addressed, according to a recent story in the weekly City Limits. Activist Lauren Shapiro, who works in the city to give families the legal and social support they need, told the paper that misunderstandings, such as not seeing the difference between mental health and mental retardation and wrongfully charging parents with abuse of neglect, are not unusual. Several other child welfare advocates and a child welfare report from the winter of 2009, support her perception that many people in the child welfare system don’t know how to deal with parents with mental illness. According to the report, some players in the system confuse parents’ reactions to the trauma of having children removed with genuine mental illness, and others are unaware of how to fairly determine whether a parent with mental illness can care for their children. Since its publication, changes are being made in one city agency that conducts some of the mental health evaluations, even though some workers don’t agree with the report.
NEW YORK --There are advantages and difficulties, including legal barriers, to converting prostitution charges into an opportunity to provide services to girls on the street. That was the conclusion of a panel of experts assembled at the 74th annual conference of the National Association of Juvenile and Family Court Judges recently. “There is a conflict in our law,” suggested Judge Edwina Richardson-Mendelson, administrative judge of the city’s family courts, “How can we criminally prosecute kids for prostitution when the law says that they can’t legally consent to having sex?” she asked. “Every child arrested is a sexually exploited child.”
The Safe Harbor bill enacted in April 2010 creates a rebuttable presumption that a minor arrested for prostitution in New York is a “trafficked” person, allowing a diversion from delinquency court to a children’s services program. But Judge Richardson-Mendelson pointed out the difficulties associated with the Safe Harbor Bill.
Longtime Georgia Juvenile Court Judge Peggy H. Walker was elected to the Executive Committee of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) earlier this week at their 74th national conference in New York City. Spanning the next five years, Judge Walker will serve as NCJFCJ secretary, treasurer, president-elect, president and immediate past-president, respectively.
Founded in 1937, the Reno-based NCJFCJ is the nation’s longest running judicial membership committee with a roster of nearly 2,000 judges and related professionals. The council aims to provide judges, courts and related agencies with the necessary knowledge and skills to improve the lives of families and children affected by the juvenile justice system and domestic violence. “The common thread among the NCJFCJ leadership is hard work and the courage to overcome adversity as we work to improve the lives of children and families,” said the newly elected Judge Walker.