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The Correctional Association’s Critique of Juvenile Justice Oversight Plan

At a city council hearing yesterday, the Correctional Association of New York expressed concern that the Administration for Children’s Services’ (ACS) plans for a new board to oversee the city’s juvenile justice homes would not be independent of ACS. Because the board would report to ACS, Gabrielle Horowitz-Prisco, director of the juvenile justice project at [...]

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Oversight for New Juvenile Justice Homes

The Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) announced plans last week to create an oversight board to serve as a watchdog for the city’s juvenile detention centers and placement facilities. ACS is accepting applications for this new board of volunteers, which the agency says will include at least one parent of a young person who has [...]

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After Negotiations with Residents, the NYPD Slashed Trespass Stops in Public Housing

Over a two-year period, the New York Police Department (NYPD) cut the number of trespass stops on public housing grounds by nearly 60 percent. The drop came after a series of negotiations between police and public housing residents. In general, people on public housing properties are far more likely to be stopped and questioned by [...]

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News Brief: Thousands More Teens Now Diverted from Juvenile Court

Each year, more than 10,000 teens aged 15 and younger are arrested by police. They begin their journey into the criminal justice system with a visit to an intake officer at the Department of Probation. Increasingly, the trip stops there. In a remarkable turnaround, the probation department has become an off-ramp for thousands of teens [...]

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The High Cost of Convicting Teens as Adults

The policy of trying 16- and 17-year-old nonviolent offenders as adults in criminal court has a damaging effect on the lifetime earnings potential of nearly 1,000 teenaged New Yorkers each year—costing them an estimated, cumulative total of between $50 million and $60 million in lost income over the course of their lives. A Child Welfare [...]

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New Edition of CWW: Young New Yorkers and the Criminal Justice System

Child Welfare Watch Report Vol. 22, Winter 2012/2013 (PDF) In the past decade, New York City has transformed its treatment of children and young adults who get in trouble with the law. The city has cut the number of kids it sends to juvenile lockups by two-thirds, investing in a system of alternative programs that [...]

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CWW 22: Recommendations and Solutions

On January 1, 2014, New York City will inaugurate its next mayor. The new administration will take office following 12 years of relatively consistent and, at times, progressive policy innovation in public agencies that influence the lives of low-income and working class families. In this issue of the Watch we report on large steps taken by the [...]

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Case Closed: Thousands More Teens Are Now Diverted From Juvenile Court

Each year, more than 10,000 teens aged 15 and  younger are arrested by police. They begin their journey into the criminal justice system with a visit to an intake  officer at the Department of Probation. Increasingly, the trip stops there. In a remarkable turnaround, the probation  department has become an off-ramp for thousands of teens [...]

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To Protect and Serve? The Uneasy Relationship Between Police and Public Housing Residents

The stairwell of Kis (pronounced “kiss”) Ravelin’s building in the Washington Houses, a two-block cluster of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments in East Harlem, could double for that of almost any public housing high rise in the city: Mustard-yellow walls rise up from a run of concrete steps, seeping a faint smell of SpaghettiOs and disinfectant. At the [...]

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Social Workers at the Kitchen Table: Can Evidence-based Juvenile Justice Services Change Child Welfare?

Patrice Boyce is one of the New York Foundling’s newest therapists and she is struggling. A neatly dressed young woman with wavy hair and a thoughtful manner, she is having trouble staying sympathetic toward a mother on her caseload. Patrice’s job is to keep this woman’s children out of foster care by using a specialized [...]

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