Correcting Corrections
While state lawmakers put the finishing touches on a state spending plan, due by the end of the month, that exceeds $150 billion, many other issues are being debated that do not have a direct impact on the budget.
Among the issues is whether 16- and 17-year olds arrested for allegedly committing a crime should be tried as juveniles or as adults (as is currently the case). The governor and Assembly Democrats are pushing a plan to charge 16- and 17-year olds as juveniles, which means they’d be prosecuted in family court instead of criminal or county courts.
New York is one of two states (North Carolina is the other) that charges 16 – and 17-year olds as adults.
Advocates maintain the main reason the change is necessary is that by entering the prison system with adults and career criminals, young people essentially learn how to be hardened criminals from the more seasoned repeat offenders.
“What we’ve created are young hoodlums who then become hardened criminals,” Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D – Williamsburg, Brooklyn) told The Jewish Press.
“The kids still don’t get the kind of treatment programs that are available from the family court when they go through the adult court system. They get treatment but they don’t get enough that’s necessary; the kind of treatment that is pervasive and continues. It’s hard for youngsters to go through because it’s hard to change a mindset.”
Many district attorneys oppose the measure, including Columbia County District Attorney Paul Czajka (R – Livingston). He is especially sensitive to this because bucolic Columbia County has lately become something of a correctional facility dumping ground.
“The Brookwood Secure Center houses many dangerous criminals and they’re all young, all teenagers,” said Czajka. “They’re murderers and rapists and it’s very, very bad and the Hudson Correctional facility has been modified to house young criminals,”
“The comparison between New York State and the other states is not well-taken because New York has a provision in the law that mandates youthful offender adjudication for 95 percent of those persons,” Czajka said on “The Jewish View,” a television program taped in Albany. “I am also opposed because if that were to happen according to the most recent iteration of the bill, district attorneys may not necessarily be involved in those prosecutions and they would occur in family court as opposed to county court.”
But proponents see it differently. Lentol, the lead sponsor of the measure, argued that “other states have gotten terrific results by reducing recidivism, by having young people become useful members of society and we consistently turn young people into hoodlums that become hardened criminals and worse because they learn from the more experienced inmates. If you can get to these kids early enough then maybe you have a chance rehabilitating them.”
The only legislative opposition, as a bloc vote, seems to be from Senate Republicans. Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R – Smithtown, Suffolk County) has not commented on the measure.
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The New York Board of Rabbis held its annual chaplaincy conference in Albany last week with officials from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), the governor’s counsel, and elected officials in attendance. The meeting was hosted by Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis. The seven-hour session was held at the main office of the Albany-based Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York.
Twenty rabbis from across the denominational spectrum minister to 1,200 inmates at 54 state prisons, according to Potasnik.
“Chaplaincy responsibilities include spiritual, counseling, and administrative work,” he said. “People in prison very much need to have a spiritual anchor. Chaplains meet with inmates one-on-one as well as in group sessions.”
DOCCS has a $2.8 billion budget and is looking to cut $2.6 million, including 39 corrections officers and reduce visitation hours to three days a week at the 17 maximum security prisons, according to Assemblyman David Weprin (D – Hollis, Queens), who took over the helm of the Assembly Correction Committee this year. The 31 medium security facilities already had visitation hours reduced to three days a week several years ago.
Potasnik says it is the opinion of DOCCS Commissioner Anthony Annucci that family members can have fewer hours and still have meaningful visitations but Weprin disagrees.
“I think it should be the other way; we need more visitations,” Weprin told The Jewish Press. “The facilities that allow for visitations only three days a week have long lines to get through security; are very crowded, and there are not enough visiting rooms so a two-hour visit becomes a 20-minute visit.”
While chaplains can gain access to a given correctional facility anytime, families of inmates are subjected to set hours. The three days chosen by DOCCS officials are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, which means observant Jewish families who live downstate with loved ones in upstate maximum-security prisons, sometimes hundreds of miles away, will only have, at best, one day – Sunday – for visitation under Gov. Cuomo’s plan.
Potasnik had no idea how many observant Jews are in maximum-security facilities. “I want to see decreasing numbers,” he said. “I don’t want to see more Jews going to prison. Ritual is important but we have to work assiduously to impart a moral and ethical foundation so people do not go to prison. It’s not a proud moment when we have people going to prison. Our challenge is to keep them out of prison. We don’t want to see Jews in prison but we’re not going to open the doors for Elijah. We’re not going to that extent.”
Potasnik seems resigned to the inevitable conclusion of reduced visitation hours at maximum-security prisons due to budget cuts.
“We will live with the decision but we also recognize the importance of visitation for inmates,” Potasnik said. “This is their opportunity to humanize the situation. There is a financial issue and a human issue. How you balance the two is the challenge for the commissioner and elected officials.”