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NEW YORK DEBATE
Juvenile Injustice
In his 2007 State of the City address, Mayor Michael
Bloomberg announced that he will launch “the most significant
restructuring of our juvenile justice system in decades,” including an
increase in alternatives to incarceration, a crackdown on truancy, and a
call to remove youthful offender status for those young people convicted
of a crime involving a gun. “We're going to do more than ever to hold
accountable the children and teens who run afoul of the law,” the mayor
said, “and also help them get the services they need. “
One express subway stop up from City Hall, in a
brownstone near Union Square with impressive doors and a well-kept
stoop, Asadullah Muhammad has a mixed reaction.
“I’m glad there will be more services,” says Muhammad.
“But his speech talks about holding young people accountable; it doesn’t
talk about holding public officials accountable. Yes, young people need
more services. They also need more opportunities.“
Muhammad runs Each One Teach One, or EOTO, a 15-week
youth leadership program that trains and educates New York City teens
who have been incarcerated, or are interested in reforming juvenile
justice. The program is part of the Juvenile Justice Project, run by the
Correctional Association of New York, a non-profit organization (housed
in that Union Square brownstone) working for a more fair and humane
criminal justice system.
It is a sad fact that young people who go to jail
often boast about it afterwards. EOTO teaches youth to share their
incarceration experiences as a teaching tool rather than a bragging
right.
Listening to youth who have been incarcerated is
becoming increasingly critical here in New York City, which since last
year has had a more than 13 percent increase in the number of juveniles
admitted to secure facilities maintained by the city's Department of
Juvenile Justice. And it can bring about real change. "It's very
powerful when you have youth who have navigated the juvenile justice
system tell legislators and the City Council what's really going on
behind the walls," said Muhammad.
Twice a week for 15 weeks, the 15 teens of EOTO are
paid to learn about the injustices within the system, like the brutality
that happens inside youth prisons. Once a year, they travel to Albany to
speak to legislators face to face about specific bills and changes they
want made. Some of what they have advocated coincides with what the
mayor talked about in his speech:
Alternatives to incarceration
The members of Each One Teach One have often puzzled over why
only five of the 31 Office of Children and Family Services facilities
are actually located in the city, when most of the kids confined in them
are from the city. They were happy, Muhammad says, to hear the mayor’s
commitment to “provide judges more options” for keeping youthful
offenders “in the community – but out of trouble”, including “a $9
million initiative to reduce the number of kids sent away to Upstate
facilities”, and a promise to provide more family-based and mental
health services.
The young people of EOTO have actively lobbied to
provide more money for "alternative to incarceration" programs. Research
has found that these programs, like community service, cost less than
detention and are more effective at reducing crime. New York State
currently spends $150 million a year to lock up youth. But nearly half
of these teens end up being rearrested and locked up again within a
year, according to the 2006 Mayor's Management Report. "There's nothing
for them to do when they get out, so they go back to what they're used
to," said Rodney, 18, an EOTO team member (whose last name is being
withheld because of his previous experience with the system).
Rodney was lucky. After being caught with a gun, he
was sentenced to six months at CASES (Center for Alternative Sentencing
and Employment Services), an alternative to incarceration program that
provides juvenile delinquents with education, counseling, internships
and job training under strict supervision. Because he missed 10 days of
work at CASES, he was sent to jail at Riker's Island for a week. It was
an experience, he says, that led him to promise himself never ever to go
back there again.
Now, after going through CASES and finishing EOTO's
15-week program, he knows it is up to him to stay on track. Rodney plans
to go to college for business management, and is waiting to hear back
from several City University schools. "It takes self-control to be
around the same surroundings you were in before you were arrested but
keep yourself from being a part of it," he said, speaking, of course,
from experience. "Even now, certain things happen and I feel myself
getting ready to slip and I have to catch myself."
Youth offender status
The mayor also said he would ask Albany to “eliminate youthful
offender status for any violent felony committed with a firearm…We have
to face facts,” the mayor explained.“ More than 50 percent of all gun
arrests involve young offenders. We have got to stop treating illegal
gun possession among minors as though it were a trivial, youthful
indiscretion. It is not.”
Muhammad disagrees with this proposal. “Youthful
offender status doesn’t mean that an offender gets off scott-free. It
just means it’s not necessarily hanging over their heads for the rest of
their lives; they won’t have to put it on a job application decades
later…Young people convicted of having a firearm don’t automatically get
youthful offender status. It’s up to the discretion of judges. If you
eliminate that discretion, then judges won’t have the opportunity or the
motivation to pay attention to the specific needs, family situations and
so on of individual young people.”
What teens need
The members of Each One Teach One explore how young people get
stereotyped and misrepresented by the media, and how this has an impact
on recommended policies. The teens themselves work to enact what they
see as sensible policies. In one recent workshop, participants even
learned how to write a press release and hold a press conference.
At last year’s Advocacy Day in Albany , EOTO teens
asked the state legislators to provide more money for alternative to
incarceration programs, and also to:
Create an independent child advocate office in New
York where jailed youth can call if they're being abused or need help.
At the moment, the thousands of teens in detention in New York can only
complain to one person who takes complaints for the whole state.
Support a bill that would protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
youth in the juvenile justice system from physical and verbal abuse. (It
has since been voted down.)
Support a bill to help get safe housing for teens who had been forced
into prostitution. (Muhammad hopes this bill will be reintroduced and
passed this year.)
Antoinette, 17, said EOTO, coupled with the 19 months she spent at Tyron
Girls' Center near Albany, helped her pick a career. "I used to bark at
my lawyers," she said, because they never seemed to defend her the way
she wanted. And now? After learning to advocate on behalf of her
incarcerated peers, "I want to be a lawyer to help people," she said,
smiling. "That's my dream."
Tanisia Morris and Jonathan Mandell
23 February 2007
Tanisia Morris, 19, is a writer for New Youth
Connections
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/children/20070124/2/2086
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