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| Advocates want more juvenile-justice services |
| By Heather Senison • Albany Bureau- Democrat and Chronicle |
| Published: 02/25/2009 |
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ALBANY— Juvenile-justice advocates asked the state Legislature Tuesday to invest $12 million the state expects to save by closing 11 youth correctional facilities back into programs to help troubled kids. The state intends to use the money saved from the closings to help close the roughly $14 billion budget gap for the 2009-10 fiscal year, which starts April 1, said Matt Anderson, a spokesman for the Budget Division. "It's a laudable long-term goal to provide increased funding for community-based programs," Anderson said. "But the state is facing record budget deficits that we must address immediately." Advocacy groups want the money sent back into communities instead. "We're going to make sure that everything possible be done to correct the mistake that this budget right now reflects," said Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, D-Brooklyn, chair of the Senate Children and Families Committee. The advocates said community-based, incarceration-alternatives programs lower recidivism rates and cost less money for the state, counties and communities. They are putting together legislation called "Redirect New York" that would mandate any money saved from closing juvenile facilities be sent back to communities and be devoted to incarceration-alternatives programs. "Our concern too is that as we close these facilities, that the money doesn't disappear into the big black-hole called the general fund," said Meredith Wiley, state director for Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York, a coalition of corrections officers. Corrections officers, district attorneys and other law enforcement leaders support restructuring the state's juvenile corrections system, Wiley said. The legislation would also repeal the requirement for the state Office of Children and Family Services to wait one year to close a facility after it is slated for closure to give staff time to look for a new job. Advocates said the wait wastes money. There are currently 964 incarcerated youths and 516 vacant beds in the state's juvenile correctional facilities, said Ed Borges, a spokesman for the Office of Children and Family Services. He said the agency will review the legislation. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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