Rethinking Juvenile Justice

Governor Andrew Cuomo is pushing to have youth in non-secured and limited-secured facilities transferred to community based facilities instead of in state operated facilities far from their families. The initiative known as the “Juvenile Justice Services Close to Home Initiative,” has many hopeful that if passed we (NYC) are moving away from lockups all together.

If approved by the state legislation, in the first year, the city would be eligible for a block grant of $35.2 million in state funds for new services (and the amount would increase the year after). Some questions that remain unanswered are: who will run the city facilities? And how will the city facilities be monitored?

The timing could not be better to purpose the City takeover of placement facilities and the reallocation of funding for services in the community. Since 2005, the average number of youth in state run facilities has decreased from 870 to 374. New York City has been moving in the right direction since 2005 with practices keeping low level offending juveniles out of detention centers. Advocates for juvenile reform have been supporting efforts to keep justice involved youth close to their families, schools, services and lawyers.

To read the Governor’s proposed legislation for youth justice click here and scroll down to part G.

To read more on this legislation see: City Limits and The Center for New York City Affairs.

Your Source for Juvenile Justice Data

Need to write a grant? Want to learn more about Juvenile Justice Statistics in a specific area?

Visit The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). OJJDP has updated the Statistical Briefing Book’s (SBB’s) data analysis tools. These tools provide access to statistics on a variety of juvenile justice topics. The tool also allows users to customize their search and create tables on juvenile populations, arrests, court cases, and custody populations.

Learn more about the Statistical Briefing Book by clicking here.

Learn more about the data analysis tools by clicking here.

Cyber Crime Panel Monday, January 23, 2012

The Crime Commission is proud to co-sponsor a panel discussion on cyber
crime issues with the NYU Institute for Public Knowledge.

Featuring : Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY); Associate General Counsel of Facebook, Chris Sonderby; FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Cyber/Special Operations Division, Mary Galligan; and Senior Faculty Fellow at the Information Law Institute and NYU Media, Culture, and Communication Professor, Helen Nissenbaum.

NYU President, John Sexton will deliver introductions, and Crime Commission President, Richard Aborn will moderate.

Cyber crime is a growing concern for law enforcement, corporations, and individuals costing billions per year. Each data breach costs American businesses an average of $6.6 million, and every hour, the FBI processes 35 cases through the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

The panel will address the policy and law enforcement challenges from a broad perspective, as well as the unique issues facing social media sites and users.


When: Monday, January 23, 2012
Time: 8:00 A.M.
Where: Kimmel Center @ New York University
Eisner & Lubin Auditorium, 4th Floor
60 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012


Please RSVP by January 19th (acceptances only):
212.608.4700 or
info@nycrimecommission.org

Free Child Support Workshop Today!

Today, the Harlem Community Justice Center will host a free child support workshop. The workshop will review key highlights of the NYC child support program, paternity establishment and its impact on low income parents. The workshop will cover the many myths and falsehoods of the system and what can be done initially to ensure that both parents understand the importance of financial support for their children. Participants will learn how programs can help families prevent, mitigate and resolve child support issues before the financial obligation is overwhelming. The workshops also covers methods and steps to address a variety of child support issues.

When: Today, Thursday, January 19, 2012

Time: 5:30-7:00 pm

Where:

Harlem Community Justice Center

121 East 121st Street (Between 3rd and Lexington Avenues)

3rd Floor

Contact: Tai Merey Alex at (212) 360-4988.

A Call for Nonviolence in Harlem on MLK Day

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

-Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King’s Day has been nationally recognized as a call to service day. Yesterday, hundreds of you in Harlem youth volunteered and gathered to think about Martin Luther King’s message of nonviolence and social change. Eight of our Youth Court members attending the MLK Youth For Change Summit sponsored by City Year and Melissa Mark Viverito's Youth Violence Task Force, at Public School 96 in East Harlem to learn lessons on how we can practice nonviolence in Harlem. To learn more about MLK activities held in Harlem read the DNA info article here.

NYPD Exploring Scanners to Detect Guns

According to a recent Daily News article, the NYPD is exploring the potential of infrared scanners that can be used to detect a concealed gun. Beyond the potential legal issues, it does raise an interesting question: What role can technology play in deterring gun violence?

Promising Gang Reduction Strategies

Cites across the Country have implemented strategies with promising results to tackle the growing gang problem. Those strategies are Social Network Analysis and Operation Ceasefire, which includes Social Network Analysis in the model.

Social network analysis in its simplest form is a map of specific ties, such as friendships, between people or organizations. This approach can help to identify which individual members are most likely to commit violence or be victims of violence and should be the focus of enhanced enforcement and intervention. It can also help law enforcement to better understand the underlying structures of individual street groups. Chicago’s West Side police district credit Social Network Analysis for its 40% decline in homicides. To read the article in the Chicago Tribune about Chicago's West Side's crime reduction click here.

Operation Ceasefire is a problem-orientated policing model that aims to reduce serious crime problems. Operation Ceasefire brings together criminal justice practitioner, uses qualitative and quantitative data, and develops an intervention model for cities and neighborhoods across the Country to reduce serious crimes. The Los Angeles Police Department implemented Operation Ceasefire in its San Fernando Valley after an increase in homicides. Last summer, police sent gang members a notice to gang members that violence will not be tolerated. And 18 gang members participated in a meeting that brought together police, prosecutors and community activists to deliver the message “put the guns down or we’re coming down on you.” To read the article in the Daily News about how Los Angles has implmented Operation Ceasefire click here.

Building Police Legitimacy in Minority Neighborhoods

Last year during a police-community dialogue I facilitated a tenant leader from the Polo Grounds public housing development in Harlem asked a very interesting question to a police commander: I just want to know why the police do what they do?

This question has been on my mind ever since. I wonder if it is possible that the gulf of mistrust between the police and many community residents here in Harlem, especially young African-American and Latino males, could somehow be repaired. I wonder if there are ways to end the appalling “death by gunshot” rates of young males in Harlem without deploying some expensive and complex prison-filling approach. Maybe, I thought, if we could get the police to explain their behavior that would help.

Some police departments are going beyond just explaining themselves; they are pro-actively engaging community members and openly discussing the racial narratives that often prevent effective violence reduction. Later this week I will be in Washington D.C to participate in a meeting of police leaders and community activist from around the country as they explore strategies for racial reconciliation and police legitimacy. Yes, you read it right, there is a growing movement supported by research that seeks to help minority communities become safer by improving the legitimacy of the police in these communities.

Legitimacy, according to Tracey Mears of Yale Law School, is: compliance that results from the “belief that an authority has the right to dictate behavior.” According to Mears, citing the work of Tom Tyler at NYU, this is different from another form of procedural justice that stresses the individuals' "moral belief" that laws are just. We obey the law or a rule if we believe the law or rule is just; we also obey authority figures –COPS, Judges, Supervisors—if we believe they have a right to set standards of behavior.

Tracey Mears believes that police can play an important role in helping to solve racial issues between police and minority communities. She is not alone. Police Chiefs and former Police Chiefs, including Bill Bratton, ret. (NYC/LA) and Garry McCarthy in Chicago, have called for increasing the legitimacy of the police in minority communities as a crime reduction and prevention approach. The federal Community Oriented Policing Services office of the U.S Department of Justice (C.O.P.S) is co-hosting the meeting this week along with the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College are hosting the meeting.

The use of mass incarceration as the primary criminal justice approach in the United States has been an abysmal failure. Today, we can generate public safety even while we reduce the use of prison and jail. Police agencies need to improve their legitimacy in high crime neighborhoods by adopting approaches that research suggests reduce disproportionate minority incarceration, are much less costly, and more effective.

To read a speech by Professor Mears click here.

Read All About It! Two Reports on Youth Gangs in Harlem

In recent years there has been a rising concern about youth gangs in Harlem. In an attempt to respond the community concern, in September 2010, the Harlem Community Justice Center launched a Juvenile Gang Task Force. Created with support from the Department of Criminal Justice Services, the Juvenile Gang Task Force brought together city government agencies, community-based organizations and faith-based leaders to research the depth of the youth gang problem and create recommendations to address the growing concern.

Findings:
• In 2009, youths under the age of eighteen accounted for 41 percent of all robbery arrests in upper Manhattan.
• Between 2007 and 2009, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) reported an increase in identified youth gangs in Upper Manhattan from 10 gangs and 150 members to 29 gangs and 1000 members.
• According to the NYPD, gang-involved youths were responsible for 29 percent (7 of 24) of all gun-related homicides in upper Manhattan in 2009, and 30 percent (31 of 102) of non-fatal shootings.
• Social media increasingly used to document affiliations and conflicts and to organize violence.

Recommendations Highlighted:
Prevention
• Convene Regular Police-Community/Youth Dialogues
• Hold Annual Youth Resource Fairs.
• Invest in School-Based Violence Prevention Programs.
• Develop Online Peer Leaders.
• Develop Street-Based Youth Development Activities in Gang Hot Spot Areas.
• Reinstate the Youth Coordinator Position at the Community Board.
• Expand Employment Opportunities for Youth.
Interventions
• Create a Juvenile Justice Online Data Center.
• Expand Mentoring Programs.
• Provide Free Tattoo Removal Services.
• Increase Non-exclusionary Responses to Gangs in Schools.
• Develop a Gang Screening Tool.
• Develop a Police Diversion Pilot.
Suppression
• Deploy New Techniques to Understand How Gang Members are Connected and How Their Relationships Contribute to Violent Behavior.
• Develop a “Cease-Fire” Style Targeted Outreach program to Reduce Gun Violence.
• Target Gang Hot Spots.
• Enhance Reentry Services to Address Gang Members Returning from Prison or Placement


To read the Needs Assessment and Strategic Plan Reports click here.