New York Finds Extreme Crisis in Youth Prisons

New York Times (Read the original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/nyregion/14juvenile.html)

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December 14, 2009

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

ALBANY — New York’s system of juvenile prisons is broken, with young people battling mental illness or addiction held alongside violent offenders in abysmal facilities where they receive little counseling, can be physically abused and rarely get even a basic education, according to a report by a state panel.

The problems are so acute that the state agency overseeing the prisons has asked New York’s Family Court judges not to send youths to any of them unless they are a significant risk to public safety, recommending alternatives, like therapeutic foster care.

“New York State’s current approach fails the young people who are drawn into the system, the public whose safety it is intended to protect, and the principles of good governance that demand effective use of scarce state resources,” said the confidential draft report, which was obtained by The New York Times.

The report, prepared by a task force appointed by Gov. David A. Paterson and led by Jeremy Travis, president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, comes three months after a federal investigation found that excessive force was routinely used at four prisons, resulting in injuries as severe as broken bones and shattered teeth.

The situation was so serious the Department of Justice, which made the investigation, threatened to take over the system.

But according to the task force, the problems uncovered at the four prisons are endemic to the entire system, which houses about 900 young people at 28 facilities around the state.

While some prisons for violent and dangerous offenders should be preserved, the report calls for most to be replaced with a system of smaller centers closer to the communities where most of the families of the youths in custody live.

The task force was convened in 2008 after years of complaints about the prisons, punctuated by the death in 2006 of an emotionally disturbed 15-year-old boy at one center after two workers pinned him to the ground. The task force’s recommendations are likely to help shape the state’s response to the federal findings.

“I was not proud of my state when I saw some of these facilities,” Mr. Travis said in an interview on Friday. “New York is no longer the leader it once was in the juvenile justice field.”

New York’s juvenile prisons are both extremely expensive and extraordinarily ineffective, according to the report, which will be given to Mr. Paterson on Monday. The state spends roughly $210,000 per youth annually, but three-quarters of those released from detention are arrested again within three years. And though the median age of those admitted to juvenile facilities is almost 16, one-third of those held read at a third-grade level.

The prisons are meant to house youths considered dangerous to themselves or others, but there is no standardized statewide system for assessing such risks, the report found.

In 2007, more than half of the youths who entered detention centers were sent there for the equivalent of misdemeanor offenses, in many cases theft, drug possession or even truancy. More than 80 percent were black or Latino, even though blacks and Latinos make up less than half the state’s total youth population — a racial disparity that has never been explained, the report said.

Many of those detained have addictions or psychological illnesses for which less restrictive treatment programs were not available. Three-quarters of children entering the juvenile justice system have drug or alcohol problems, more than half have had a diagnosis of mental health problems and one-third have developmental disabilities.

Yet there are only 55 psychologists and clinical social workers assigned to the prisons, according to the task force. And none of the facilities employ psychiatrists, who have the authority to prescribe the drugs many mentally ill teenagers require.

While 76 percent of youths in custody are from the New York City area, nearly all the prisons are upstate, and the youths’ relatives, many of them poor, cannot afford frequent visits, cutting them off from support networks.

“These institutions are often sorely underresourced, and some fail to keep their young people safe and secure, let alone meet their myriad service and treatment needs,” according to the report, which was based on interviews with workers and youths in custody, visits to prisons and advice from experts. “In some facilities, youth are subjected to shocking violence and abuse.”

Even before the task force’s report is released, the Paterson administration is moving to reduce the number of youths held in juvenile prisons.

Gladys Carrión, the commissioner of the Office of Children and Family Services, the agency that oversees the juvenile justice system, has recommended that judges find alternative placements for most young offenders, according to an internal memorandum issued Oct. 28 by the state’s deputy chief administrative judge.

Ms. Carrión also advised court officials that New York would not contest the Justice Department findings, according to the memo, and that officials were negotiating a settlement agreement to remedy the system.

Peter E. Kauffmann, a spokesman for Mr. Paterson, said the governor “looks forward to receiving the recommendations of the task force as we continue our efforts to transform the state’s juvenile justice system from a correctional-punitive model to a therapeutic model.”

The report contends that smaller facilities would place less strain on workers, helping reduce the use of physical force, and would be better able to tailor rehabilitation programs.

New York is not unique in using its juvenile prisons to house mentally ill teenagers, particularly as many states confront huge budget shortfalls that have resulted in significant cuts to mental health programs. Still, some states are trying to shift to smaller, community-based programs.

The report by New York’s task force does not say how much money would be needed to overhaul the system, but as Mr. Paterson and state lawmakers try to close a $3.2 billion deficit, cost could become a major hurdle.

Ms. Carrión has faced resistance from some prison workers, who accuse her of making them scapegoats for the system’s problems and minimizing the dangerous conditions they face. State records show a significant spike in on-the-job injuries, for which some workers blame Ms. Carrión’s efforts to limit the use of force.

“We embrace the idea of moving towards a more therapeutic model of care, but you can’t do that without more training and more staff,” said Stephen A. Madarasz, a spokesman for the Civil Service Employees Association, the union that represents prison workers. “You’re not dealing with wayward youth. In the more secure facilities, you’re dealing with individuals who have been involved in pretty serious crimes.”

Advocates have credited Ms. Carrión, who was appointed in 2007 by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, with instituting significant reforms, including installing cameras in some of the more troubled prisons and providing more counseling.

But the state has a long way to go, many advocates say.

“Even the kids that are not considered dangerous are shackled when they are being transferred from their homes to the centers upstate — hands and feet, sometimes even belly chains,” said Clara Hemphill, a researcher and author of a report on the state’s youth prisons published in October by the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School.

CCFY Members Call for Changes in NY State Youth Prisons

Listen to CCFY members discuss abuses in New York State youth prisons. Rachel Carrion talks about her experiences in a youth facility. Mishi Faruqee talks about the failure of youth prisons to rehabilitate, and Ruben Austria talks about the need for community-based alternatives to incarceration for youth. Listen to the audio clip here: WAMC: Move To Overhaul NY's Juvenile Prisons (2009-09-18)

CCFY Leaders Decry Abuses in the Juvenile Justice System

CCFY Board Members Mishi Faruqee and Rachel Carrion speak out against abuses in upstate youth prisons in this video. A Department of Justice report found that youth were routinely abused in OCFS facilities, including excessive use of force by staff, failure to hold staff accountable for misconduct, and inadequate mental health treatment. There have even been cases of staff sexually abusing female youth in facilities and supplying youth with drugs.

Federal Investigation of New York State Youth Prisons finds Rampant Abuses of Youth

A two year Department of Justice investigation of four youth facilities found that staff routinely used excessive force against youth residents. Furthermore, administrators failed to investigate reports of abuse committed by staff or discipline those who abused youth. The report concluded that children were so severely abused it constituted a violation of their civil rights. The NY Times reports: "In one case described in the report, a youth was forcibly restrained and handcuffed after refusing to stop laughing when ordered to; the youth sustained a cut lip and injuries to the wrists and elbows. One boy, after glaring at a staff member, was forced into a sitting position and his arms were secured behind his back with such force that his collarbone was broken." Read the full text of the article here: NY Times Article

SIGN THE PETITION TO CLOSE THESE ABUSIVE FACILITIES NOW!!!

Please take 10 seconds to sign the petition to close these abusive facilities and bring our children - and the resources they need to thrive - back to the communities where they live. http://www.petitiononline.com/200k4bed/ We pay up to $200,000 annually per kid to send them far from home to places where facility workers despise and fear them. We should be keeping them at home!!

Tuesday: NYCLU, Al Sharpton and Children’s Defense Fund-NY to Hold Press Conference about Abuse in NY’s Juvenile Detention Centers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



Aug. 24, 2009 – At a press conference tomorrow on the steps of City Hall, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, and the Children’s Defense Fund-NY will demand reforms to end the culture of neglect and abuse pervading four of New York State’s juvenile detention centers.

In findings recently made public after a nearly two-year investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) found that staff at four juvenile detention centers consistently used excessive force and violent physical restraint techniques that often resulted in serious injuries, including concussions and broken bones.

The DOJ report examines conditions at four facilities operated by the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS). Federal investigators concluded that administrators failed to effectively investigate excessive force incidents or punish staff members guilty of abusing residents, who are all younger than 16 at the time of arrest.  They also found that the centers fail to provide adequate mental health care to residents.

In a Sept. 2006 report, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch released a report documenting alarming abuse and neglect of girls at Tryon and Lansing. Later that year, a teenager died at the Tryon facility after two workers pinned him to the ground.

What:

Press conference to demand reform at state’s juvenile detention facilities

When:

Tuesday, Aug. 25 at 11 a.m.

Where:

City Hall, Manhattan

Who:

Donna Lieberman, NYCLU

The Rev. Al Sharpton, the National Action Network

Mishi Faruqee, Children’s Defense Fund-NY

Mie Lewis, ACLU

New York Rethinks Juvenile Justice

Listen to Public Radio's coverage of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice's Symposium on Racial Disparities, including statements from members of the NYC Task Force on Racial Disparity. Featured on this interview are Mishi Faruqee of the Children's Defense Fund, Tamara Steckler of the Legal Aid Society, and Tshaka Barrows of the W. Haywood Burns Institute. Listen to the audio file here.

Officials, advocates look to reform juvenile justice

May 22, 2009

By Cara Matthews
Albany Bureau

ALBANY - Advocates for improving juvenile justice in New York claimed Thursday that the state is not fully complying with a federal law that requires it to address the disproportionate number of minority youth in the system.

The Children's Defense Fund of New York, the Legal Aid Society and other organizations said that to help turn that around, state and local agencies need to do a better job of reporting information on the racial and ethnic makeup of children who are arrested, placed in detention or incarcerated.

Armed with all the data, communities could tailor specific programs and strategies to reduce the disparity, members of the groups said. They want the state to crack down on non-compliant agencies, require that all the information be made public, and work with communities on solutions.

"It's really only by reporting that data that we get a clear picture of what's going on and can actually pinpoint where racial disparity is happening," said Ruben Austria, director of Community Connections for Youth in New York City.

New York's system serves nearly 1,900 children at an annual cost of about $200,000 per child, and more than 75 percent of the youth are black or Hispanic, according to Gov. David Paterson's administration, which formed a task force last fall to look at possible improvements.

State Office of Children and Family Services statistics show that minority youth are arrested 1.76 times more than white youth, detained at a rate of 6.31 compared with whites and placed in confinement 4.62 times more often than whites.

Federal law passed in 1988 says states can jeopardize a portion of their funding if they don't address racial disparities in their juvenile-justice systems.

The state Department of Criminal Justice Services, which collects data from police, courts and other agencies involved with juvenile justice, recognized that some of the information reported to the department appeared inconsistent or incomplete and has been reviewing all the data and working with agencies to improve reporting, department spokesman John Caher said.

Racial disparity in juvenile justice was one of the topics addressed in a seminar Thursday that was sponsored by the Division of Criminal Justice Services, other state agencies and lawmakers. The department created the position of juvenile- justice director about a year ago, and Thursday's event was part of a series of forums the director organized on reforming the system, Caher said.

Youth of color are over- represented in juvenile-justice systems nationwide, Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, said at the symposium. They are more likely to be arrested, detained and committed; more likely to receive harsher sentences; and disparity worsens at deeper levels of the system. Some of the reasons are cultural, and a lot of it comes down to who has better legal representation.

In New York City, there is a "crisis of racial disparity," with black children and teens 31.8 times more likely to be incarcerated then their white peers, Austria said. Hispanic youth are 16.4 times more likely.

"For many years, a lot of folks who run agencies and make decisions just look at it as this is just sort of the way things are, this is just an intractable problem," Austria said.

Young people of color in cities commit the same types of offenses that all youth do, but for them the "response tends to be punitive and tends to be criminalization" rather than alternatives to being in the system, he said.

The top nine charges for children who are clients of the Legal Aid Society in New York City and go through the Family Court system are misdemeanors, said Tamara Steckler, attorney-in-charge for the society's Juvenile Rights Practice in New York City. The charges are for offenses like shoplifting, graffiti, having a school fight and trespassing by visiting a friend in a housing project, she said. Almost all the clients are minorities.

Kids take risks, they don't often see consequences and they get in trouble, Steckler said. "As adults, we are here to teach them and help them grow and be productive adults, and that's in their communities, with their families' support, not incarcerated. It's our responsibility," she said.

In wealthier, white communities, children are much more likely to be released to their families, and parents are expected to discipline them, she said.

The New York City groups have organized a task force on racial disparity in the system.

NY's School to Prison Pipeline (NYCLU Video)

This is a short clip on New York's School to Prison Pipeline that disproportionately targets youth of color in large urban areas. Weighing in on the topic are Charisa Smith, Director of the NY Juvenile Justice Coalition, Eddie Borges of the Office of Children and Famiy Services, and Ruben Austria of Community Connections for Youth during a recent trip to Western New York to visit empty youth prisons.  

Closing of Juvenile Centers Sparks Debate Over Treating Troubled Kids (WBFO 88.7)

Eddie Borges (OCFS), Charisa Smith (Correctional Association of New York) and Ruben Austria (CCFY) weigh in on the effort to close empty upstate youth prisons, as does Darcy Well of the Public Employees Federation. Listen to the audio here:

WBFO 88.7 Closing of Juvenile Centers

Despite Red Flags About Judges, a Kickback Scheme Flourished

By IAN URBINA

New York Times, March 28, 2009 

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Things were different in the Luzerne County juvenile courtroom, and everyone knew it. Proceedings on average took less than two minutes. Detention center workers were told in advance how many juveniles to expect at the end of each day — even before hearings to determine their innocence or guilt. Lawyers told families not to bother hiring them. They would not be allowed to speak anyway.

“The judge’s whim is all that mattered in that courtroom,” said Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, a child advocacy organization in Philadelphia, which began raising concerns about the court to state authorities in 1999. “The law was basically irrelevant.”

Last month, the law caught up with Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, who ran that juvenile court for 12 years, and Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, a colleague on the county’s Court of Common Pleas.

In what authorities are calling the biggest legal scandal in state history, the two judges pleaded guilty to tax evasion and wire fraud in a scheme that involved sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks.

On Thursday, the State Supreme Court ordered that the records be cleaned for hundreds of the 2,500 or so juveniles sentenced by Judge Ciavarella, and in the coming weeks, the two judges will be sentenced, under a plea agreement, to more than seven years in prison.

While the scandal continues to ripple nationally as legal experts debate whether juvenile courts have sufficient oversight, here in Luzerne County people are grappling with more immediate questions: How did two native sons, elected twice to the bench to protect children and serve justice, decide to do the opposite? And why did no one stop them?

Old Friends Hatch a Plan

It all started in June 2000 with a simple business proposition, according to the judges’ indictment and more than 40 interviews with courtroom workers, authorities and others.

Robert J. Powell, a wealthy personal-injury lawyer from Hazleton and longtime friend of Judge Conahan, wanted to know how he might get a contract to build a private detention center. Judge Ciavarella thought he could help.

The two men agreed to meet and, according to prosecutors, somewhere in that conversation a plan was hatched that courthouse workers and county officials would later describe as a “freight train without brakes.”

First, Judge Ciavarella put Mr. Powell in touch with a developer who also happened to be an old friend, Robert K. Mericle, to start work on finding a site. Then, in January 2002 — the month Judge Conahan became president judge, giving him control of the courthouse budget — he signed a secret deal with Mr. Powell, agreeing that the court would pay $1.3 million in annual rent, on top of the tens of millions of dollars that the county and the state would pay to house the delinquent juveniles. And by the end of that year, Judge Conahan had gotten rid of the competition by eliminating financing for the county detention center.

“They were unstoppable,” said Judge Chester B. Muroski, who sent a letter to county commissioners raising concerns about detention costs, only to be transferred days later to another court by Judge Conahan. “I knew something was wrong, but they silenced all dissent.”

Other dissenters were also steamrolled.

When the county controller, Steve Flood, leaked a state audit that described the state’s lease of the center as a “bad deal,” the center’s owner filed a “trade secrets” lawsuit against Mr. Flood, and Judge Conahan sealed the suit to limit other documents’ getting out. His decision was later overturned.

“Everyone began to assume that the judges had some vested interest in the private center because they were pushing it so doggedly,” one courthouse worker said. Virtually all former colleagues and courthouse workers would not allow themselves to be identified because the federal investigation into the kickback scheme was continuing and they feared for their jobs if they alienated former allies of the judges.

Mr. Powell has not been charged. His lawyer said that the judges had coerced him into paying the kickbacks and that he was cooperating with investigators.

The few officials who had concerns at the time say their hands were tied. Probation officers say they suspected that something was amiss but were overruled every time they requested lighter sentences or for sentences to be served at home. County commissioners were the only ones authorized to sign contracts for detention centers. But by eliminating money for the county center, Judge Conahan left them little alternative but to sign on to the deal for the private facility.

Prosecutors say that by sentencing juveniles to detention at twice the state average, Judge Ciavarella was holding up his end of the bargain. And by late 2003, so much money was rolling in that the two judges were struggling to hide it all. So in 2004, they bought a $785,000 condominium together in Florida to help conceal the payments, and they began disguising transactions as rent and other related fees.

“We did what we could to stop it,” said Commissioner Stephen A. Urban, who repeatedly argued that the county should build its own center rather than lease the private one. “There were so many red flags that no one could mistake them as any other color.”

Disparate Upbringings

One red flag was the 56-foot yacht in front of the judges’ Florida condo, where they and Mr. Powell started spending much of their time. Owned by Mr. Powell, the $1.5 million boat was named the Reel Justice.

The conspicuous wealth Judge Ciavarella enjoyed in Florida was a far cry from the rough East End neighborhood in Wilkes-Barre where he grew up and is still known as “the local kid who made it big.”

A stellar athlete and student, Judge Ciavarella was the son of a brewery worker and a phone company operator. Nicknamed Scooch, like his father, he drove a beat-up Volkswagen Beetle for years, and even after moving away, he visited his aging mother daily until she died in 2007.

After law school at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Mr. Ciavarella ran for a seat on the county’s Court of Common Pleas in August 1994. On the bench, he became known for a stern hand in sentencing and a sharp wit in making sure everyone knew who was boss.

By contrast, Judge Conahan was known for being quiet, even secretive, on and off the bench. His neighbors observed that in a community known for holiday parties and open houses, no one they knew had ever seen the inside of Judge Conahan’s house.

Raised in Hazleton, on the other side of the county from Wilkes Barre, Judge Conahan came from money and had a political pedigree.

His father, who owned a funeral home, was Hazleton’s mayor from 1962 to 1974. Judge Conahan attended Villanova University and went to law school atTemple University.

Despite their differences, the two men became close friends on the bench, connected, former colleagues say, by a similarly stern view of justice.

In 2004, Judge Conahan bought the house next to Judge Ciavarella’s in Mountain Top, a wealthy suburb of Wilkes-Barre, where Mr. Powell also lives. The judges and their wives began sharing a recreational vehicle to tailgate at Penn State football games and vacationing together in Florida.

“They were pretty average guys,” Frank Monaco, the superintendent of the Florida condominium building, said of the judges and Mr. Powell. “Average for people with lots of money.”

Though the judges and Mr. Powell generally kept to themselves, Mr. Monaco said, they lost that low profile in 2004 after Mr. Powell got into a dispute with marina officials who wanted to end his slip lease. Mr. Powell went to court to force the marina to let him keep his boat there, but he filed his motion in Luzerne County, not Florida.

A colleague of Judge Conahan and Judge Ciavarella ruled in favor of Mr. Powell, despite a protest from the marina’s lawyer that the case should have been heard in Florida and that he could not attend the hearing because he had been given only one day’s notice.

“People at the marina thought that seemed like a real abuse of power,” Mr. Monaco said. The lawsuit was dropped after Mr. Powell moved his boat to another marina.

“You get enough power and you’re bound to start abusing it, I suppose,” Mr. Monaco said.

Troubling Trends

There was never doubt about who had the power in Courtroom 4 in the Luzerne County Courthouse. Though courteous, even jocular, Judge Ciavarella ran hearings with breakneck efficiency, cutting lawyers off when they rambled, scolding them when they arrived unprepared.

Sometimes, he helped his friends, too.

One courthouse worker recounted seeing a high school friend appear before Judge Ciavarella on a speeding charge. When the state trooper testified that he had clocked the man going 80 in a 55-mile-per-hour zone, the judge interrupted. “No, I think he was just going 60. Matter closed,” the worker recalled the judge saying. Shocked, the trooper turned to face the judge. “You’re dismissed,” the judge said.

But the juveniles being sentenced in that dim oak-paneled courtroom tended to be less lucky. Parents who arrived with their children typically left without them.

“Your arguments in sentencing weren’t persuasive,” said Basil G. Russin, the Luzerne County public defender, who represented many juveniles in Judge Ciavarella’s court. “You expected your kid to go away.”

While judges elsewhere in the state were shifting away from incarcerating juveniles for delinquency, Luzerne County was becoming infamous for imposing heavy sentences for minor infractions.

Kurt Kruger, for example, was 17 when he was sent to a boot camp for five months in 2004 for being a lookout for a friend who was stealing DVDs from a Wal-Mart. DayQuawn Johnson was 13 when he was sent to a detention center for several days in 2006 for failing to appear at a hearing as a witness to a fight, even though his family had never been notified about the hearing and he had already told school officials that he had not seen anything. Both juveniles were first-time offenders.

Judge Ciavarella had never made a secret about liking his justice swift and firm. Nicknamed Mr. Zero Tolerance in the courthouse, he once put a father in jail after he could not pay court-imposed fees for his daughter, whom the judge had previously locked up.

Asked last year why he did not make a habit of telling juveniles of their right to a lawyer before hearings, Judge Ciavarella said, “I just don’t believe I have to spoon-feed people to do things in their life.”

But as he pleaded guilty last month and admitted having “disgraced” the bench, Judge Ciavarella denied that payments had influenced his sentencing decisions.

State data, however, give a different picture. The number of juveniles he sent to secure facilities outside the home more than doubled from 2001 to 2002, around the time that the authorities say he and Judge Conahan hatched their kickback plan. And that sentencing trend — more than double the state average — continued through 2007, according to data analyzed by The New York Times. (No data was available for 2008.)

After the Juvenile Law Center appealed a case involving a child who was sentenced without a lawyer, Judge Ciavarella told reporters in 2000 that he would avoid letting juveniles appear without counsel in the future. But state data indicate that the problem only worsened. From 1997 to 2003, juveniles appeared before Judge Ciavarella without counsel at more than five times the state average, and from 2003 through 2007, that rate was around 10 times the state average.

Federal authorities have declined to say when they began investigating the judges. But these trends started worrying State Department of Public Welfare auditors in 2003, when they noticed that the county was billing the state for the same amount every month for detention services. In most other counties, the bill fluctuates based on the changing numbers of juvenile offenders each month.

In a separate review, state auditors found that the detention centers were systematically overbilling the county and that the centers had fallen behind in their bills and begun receiving shut-off notices from utility companies.

“Those were all red flags to us,” said Ted Dallas, executive deputy secretary for the Department of Public Welfare, adding that his office tried to work with the county to lower its use of detention because the state pays partial reimbursement for those costs.

But, like so many others, Mr. Dallas said there was little he could do. Since the centers were privately owned, state auditors had limited authority. And since the judges were on the side of the centers, the auditors had little recourse in the event of a conflict.

“In the end,” Mr. Dallas said, “it all came down to what the judge decided.”

Sean D. Hamill contributed reporting.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled the town of Hazleton, Pa., as Hazelton.

Empty Beds Cost Millions

The Post-Journal

March 8, 2009

by Patrick Fanelli

GREAT VALLEY - A few miles south of Ellicottville lies the empty corridors, classrooms and dormitories of Great Valley Residential Center, which hasn't been home to a single child in more than five months. The empty 25-bed facility for troubled youths must be staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it costs approximately $1.7 million a year to maintain regardless of how many children are present. That amounts to $68,000 a year for each bed. The Great Valley Residential Center and a similar 25-bed facility in Cattaraugus are scheduled to be closed later this year under a plan put forward by Gov. David Paterson and Gladys Carrion, state Office of Children and Family Services commissioner, as the state faces an unprecedented fiscal crisis that threatens all New Yorkers with significant tax and fee hikes. Closing the two facilities and several others in Upstate New York will save $16.4 million this year alone, and the savings could be substantially higher in years to come since many, if not all, of those facilities won't be closed until later this year, according to OCFS officials. Keeping Great Valley open, says Ed Borges, OCFS communication director, is a waste of taxpayer money since it is so costly to maintain, isn't being utilized and doesn't need to be kept open. ''In good times, that's unreasonable and ridiculous,'' said Borges, who has been providing tours of the underutilized facilities for reporters to underscore the need to restructure OCFS operations. ''In bad times, that's absurd.'' Great Valley Residential Facility is located on a winding road that cuts through the picturesque forests and hillsides of Cattaraugus County a few miles northwest of Great Valley, a tiny hamlet south of the bustling village of Ellicottville. Nestled on a quiet hillside covered with pines, the facility is made up of two long, one-story buildings painted green that resemble a motel complex. One building is home to the administrative offices and classrooms. The other, which is attached to a red barn complete with horse stables, is home to the dormitories, dining facilities, library and gymnasium. On the side of the road approaching the facility, hand-written signs on poster board object to plans to close the facility. The employees inside, some of whom have worked there for more than three decades and are still some time away from retirement, are afraid for their jobs. The last time a child walked the corridors of Great Valley Residential Center was Oct. 2. The reason for that, says Borges, is that judges are sending far fewer children to these facilities than before. As of Oct. 27, judges in both Chautauqua and Cattaraugus County only sent one child to OCFS for placement in a non-secure facility like Great Valley in 2008, according to Borges. The vast majority of offenders are sent to private facilities or other programs for troubled youths, he says. And the vast majority of children being sent to OCFS facilities come from the downstate area, according to Borges. That's why it makes sense to close the underutilized residential centers like Great Valley in favor of local programs while maintaining other, better-utilized facilities, the nearest of which is in Rochester, he says. ''Investment-wise, it's better for taxpayers because it's more efficient and effective,'' he said. Ruben Austria, founder and executive director of Community Connection, a youth program in the Bronx, favors at least some of the money OCFS is going to save to bolster youth programs and services across the state. According to Austria, that's not expected to happen. ''Right now, all the money that will be saved will go to closing the budget deficit,'' said Austria, who accompanied Borges to Great Valley on Friday. Opposing the restructuring initiative is the New York State Public Employees Federation, the union that represents many of the workers who could lose their jobs under the plan. According to union officials, the restructuring plan isn't in New Yorkers' best interest because treatment provided for troubled youths at public residential centers is much better than services provided by the private sector. At private facilities, says Kevin Hintz, the union's Western New York region coordinator, children have a much easier job going absent without leave, and the recidivism rate is higher. ''After a kid flunks out of a private facility two or three times, they finally get the clue that it's better to put him in a good facility, i.e. an OCFS facility,'' Hintz said. According to Darcy Wells, the union's public relations director, the teenager who shot a Rochester police officer recently was AWOL from a private youth facility. And at the private facility closest to Jamestown, the Randolph Children's Home, as many as 20 children have been AWOL at a single time, according to Ms. Wells. OCFS officials point to the fact that judges are sending children to private facilities more than public facilities as evidence that places like Great Valley aren't needed anymore. At the same time, union officials say OCFS isn't actively promoting their services the way private providers do. ''We feel strongly that OCFS deliberately emptied the facilities now proposed to close in order to point at them, empty, and declare that it's a waste of taxpayer dollars,'' Ms. Wells said. Borges is dismissive of the union's claims, especially since union officials represent those with the most to lose from the restructuring plan - the workers at the public facilities scheduled to be closed. ''People here are trying to protect their jobs, which I can understand,'' Borges said. ''(But) we can't continue to support this.''

Video Shows King Co. Deputy Kicking Teen Girl

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

February 28 at 5:31 a.m. ET

SEATTLE (AP) -- A King County sheriff's deputy kicks a 15-year-old girl, slams her to the floor of a jail cell, strikes her and pulls her hair in violence captured on videotape.

Prosecutors released the surveillance video in Friday in the assault case against Deputy Paul Schene, who is accused of using excessive force on the girl.

The footage shows the attack beginning after the girl enters the cell at suburban SeaTac City Hall and kicks off one of her shoes toward the deputy.

Schene, 31, pleaded not guilty to fourth-degree assault in Superior Court on Thursday.

The incident last November began after the girl was brought in for an auto theft investigation, according to court documents.

''We believe this case is beyond just police misconduct, it's criminal misconduct,'' King County Prosecutor Daniel Satterberg said. ''This is clearly excessive force.''

Satterberg added the case is uncommon because cameras captured the entire incident.

Schene was investigated previously for shooting two people -- killing one -- in the line of duty in 2002 and 2006. Both times his actions were found to be justified, said Ian Goodhew, prosecutor's deputy chief of staff.

Calls by The Associated Press to Schene's lawyer Anne Bremner were not immediately returned Friday. Bremner, however, released a statement to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in which she said the video does not tell the whole story. Bremner had asked Judge Catherine Shaffer to not release the video to the media.

''As we argued to the judge, it will inflame public opinion and will severely impact the deputy's right to a fair trial,'' Bremner said.

In the video, a deputy kicks the girl, pushing her back toward the wall. The deputy then strongly backs the girl against the wall, and slams her to the floor by grabbing her hair. A second deputy enters the holding cell, while the first deputy holds the girl face down to the floor. The first deputy appears to hit the girl with his hands. The girl is then lifted up and led out of the cell while the first deputy holds her hair.

The second officer shown in the video was a trainee at the time and is not under investigation, Goodhew said.

According to court documents, the girl complained of breathing problems after the incident and medics were called to check her. A short time later, she was taken to a youth detention center and booked for investigation of auto theft and third-degree assault, the latter accusation dealing with her conduct toward the deputy. The girl has pleaded not guilty to taking a motor vehicle without permission, Goodhew said Friday, adding she was never formally charged with assault.

Schene told investigators through an e-mail conversation with his lawyer that once he was assaulted by the girl kicking her shoe at him, he entered the cell to ''prevent another assault,'' according to court documents. Schene also said that the girl failed to comply with instructions in the holding area.

Prosecutors said Schene did not explain why he struck the girl after he had her in a holding position on the floor.

Suit Names 2 Judges Accused in a Kickback Case (NY Times)

February 14, 2009

By IAN URBINA

Several hundred families filed a class-action suit Friday against two Pennsylvania judges who pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks for sending juveniles to private detention facilities.

“At the hands of two grossly corrupt judges and several conspirators, hundreds of Pennsylvania children, their families and loved ones, were victimized and their civil rights were violated,” said Michael J. Cefalo, one of the lawyers representing the families. “It’s our intent to make sure that the system rights this terrible injustice and holds those responsible accountable.”

Pennsylvania lawmakers called on Friday for hearings into the state’s juvenile justice system. And the Juvenile Justice Law Center in Philadelphia, which blew the whistle on the judges, said it had sworn affidavits from families who said they had sought court-appointed counsel but were told that their children would have to wait weeks, sometimes months, for a lawyer. During that time, the children would have to remain in detention, the families said.

The two judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan, pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Scranton, Pa., to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years in prison.

As many as 5,000 juveniles are believed to have appeared before Judge Ciavarella while the kickback scheme was going on. The judges are currently free on an unsecured $1 million bond, and they have surrendered their passports and a condominium in Florida. Neither is allowed out of the state without permission.

State Senator Stewart J. Greenleaf, a Republican from Montgomery County who is the chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee, said he intended to hold a hearing to find ways to help the children and their families once the federal investigation was done. A spokesman in Mr. Greenleaf’s office said one option was to provide money from the crime victims compensation fund.

“Money is important, but my son’s life has already been completely destroyed,” said Ruby Cherise Uca, whose son, Chad, 18, was sentenced to three months of detention by Judge Ciavarella in 2005, when Chad was in eighth grade.

Chad, who had no prior offenses, was charged with simple assault after shoving a boy at school and causing him to cut his head on a locker. Chad returned to school his freshman year, but he was so far behind in classes and so stigmatized by his teachers and peers, his mother said, that he soon dropped out.

Federal investigators remained silent Friday about whether they would file charges against the operators of the detention centers or who else they were considering as possible conspirators.

But a law enforcement official confirmed Friday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation visited a transitional housing program in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where Judge Ciavarella furloughed inmates who had been sentenced by other judges, as federal authorities continue to scrutinize actions by Judge Ciavarella and Judge Conahan.

Lawyers for Robert J. Powell, the owner of one of the detention centers, released a letter saying Mr. Powell was not complicit in the kickback scheme but was a victim of demands from the judges for payment.

Robert Schwartz, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Center in Philadelphia, said that juveniles should not be allowed to waive their right to counsel, as is permitted in Pennsylvania, and that if families wanted a lawyer but could not afford one, they should get representation.

Mr. Schwartz added that Luzerne County, where the judges handled cases, had only one public defender on staff for juveniles. The juvenile court processes about 1,200 juvenile defendants a year.

Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit (NYTimes)

New York Times

February 13, 2009

By IAN URBINA and SEAN D. HAMILL

At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.

Instead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.

She was handcuffed and taken away as her stunned parents stood by.

“I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare,” said Hillary, 17, who was sentenced in 2007. “All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”

The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.

While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.

“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003. Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.

The case has shocked Luzerne County, an area in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been battered by a loss of industrial jobs and the closing of most of its anthracite coal mines.

And it raised concerns about whether juveniles should be required to have counsel either before or during their appearances in court and whether juvenile courts should be open to the public or child advocates.

If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar. They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months. Lawyers for both men declined to comment.

Since state law forbids retirement benefits to judges convicted of a felony while in office, the judges would also lose their pensions.

With Judge Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said.

They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, the authorities said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers.

Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.

Though he pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday, Judge Ciavarella has denied sentencing juveniles who did not deserve it or sending them to the detention centers in a quid pro quo with the centers.

But Assistant United States Attorney Gordon A. Zubrod said after the hearing that the government continues to charge a quid pro quo.

“We’re not negotiating that, no,” Mr. Zubrod said. “We’re not backing off.”

No charges have been filed against executives of the detention centers. Prosecutors said the investigation into the case was continuing.

For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Judge Ciavarella was unusually harsh. He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10. He also routinely ignored requests for leniency made by prosecutors and probation officers.

“The juvenile system, by design, is intended to be a less punitive system than the adult system, and yet here were scores of children with very minor infractions having their lives ruined,” said Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center.

“There was a culture of intimidation surrounding this judge and no one was willing to speak up about the sentences he was handing down.”

Last year, the Juvenile Law Center, which had raised concerns about Judge Ciavarella in the past, filed a motion to the State Supreme Court about more than 500 juveniles who had appeared before the judge without representation. The court originally rejected the petition, but recently reversed that decision.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that children have a constitutional right to counsel. But in Pennsylvania, as in at least 20 other states, children can waive counsel, and about half of the children that Judge Ciavarella sentenced had chosen to do so. Only Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina require juveniles to have representation when they appear before judges.

Clay Yeager, the former director of the Office of Juvenile Justice in Pennsylvania, said typical juvenile proceedings are kept closed to the public to protect the privacy of children.

“But they are kept open to probation officers, district attorneys, and public defenders, all of whom are sworn to protect the interests of children,” he said. “It’s pretty clear those people didn’t do their jobs.”

On Thursday in Federal District Court in Scranton, more than 80 people packed every available seat in the courtroom. At one point, as Assistant United States Attorney William S. Houser explained to Judge Edwin M. Kosik that the government was willing to reach a plea agreement with the men because the case involved “complex charges that could have resulted in years of litigation,” one man sitting in the audience said “bull” loud enough to be heard in the courtroom.

One of the parents at the hearing was Susan Mishanski of Hanover Township.

Her son, Kevin, now 18, was sentenced to 90 days in a detention facility last year in a simple assault case that everyone had told her would result in probation, since Kevin had never been in trouble and the boy he hit had only a black eye.

“It’s horrible to have your child taken away in shackles right in front of you when you think you’re going home with him,” she said. “It was nice to see them sitting on the other side of the bench.”

 

Read the original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Indictments Are Expected in Killing of Inmate, 18

January 22, 2009

By AL BAKER

Prosecutors are expected to announce criminal charges on Thursday against three city correction officers suspected of deliberately looking the other way as several inmates on Rikers Island beat another inmate to death in the jail in October, people briefed on the case said on Wednesday.

The battered body of the victim, Christopher Robinson, 18, was found in his cell on Oct. 18.

The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide, officials said.

No motive for the fatal attack has been divulged. Within days of Mr. Robinson’s death, two correction officers, Michael McKie and Khalid Nelson, were placed on modified assignment as an investigation into the death at the Robert N. Davoren Center of the jail complex began, law enforcement officials said.

Those two officers, as well as a third, a woman whose name has not been released, and several inmates accused of being the assailants are believed to have been named in the indictment, which is expected to be unsealed in State Supreme Court in the Bronx on Thursday, said one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the charges have not been resolved.

The indictment is expected to allege that the correction officers “were purposefully not paying attention,” the official said. “My understanding is they have been arrested and are in custody.”

Sanford A. Rubenstein, a lawyer for the victim’s family, said officials from the office of the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, notified the teenager’s mother, Charnel Robinson, 34, about the pending charges but did not provide her with the names of the defendants or the specific charges they are facing.

He added: “This indictment will send a message to those charged with the responsibility of safeguarding inmates from harm that if you do not do your duty, you will be charged criminally, and a message to inmates that if you commit a horrible crime while incarcerated you will be held accountable.”

Mr. Rubenstein said that Ms. Robinson told him that her son was arrested in August on a parole violation stemming from a 2007 burglary charge. He said she said the violation involved her son’s “working late.”