Council Skeptical of Claim City Ready To Put Inmates Into Juvenile Center (Free Article)

“I’m going fighting, screaming and kicking as of Oct. 1,” Elias Husamudeen, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, said Sept. 20 of the date 300 of his members were scheduled to be transferred to Horizon Juvenile Center as part of the Raise the Age initiative.

Trouble Making Case

Officials from the Mayor’s Office for Criminal Justice and the Administration for Children’s Services tried to convince the City Council’s Committee on Juvenile Justice that the city was ready to move 16- and 17-year-old offenders from Rikers Island to the Bronx juvenile facility in less than two weeks, and weren’t successful.

The Council Members probed the officials about the de Blasio administration’s plan to staff Horizon, which will be jointly run by the Department of Correction and the Administration for Children’s Services, with Correction Officers. Youth advocates and unions have criticized that decision: though 87 ACS workers, including Case Managers and program staff, will work at Horizon, there will be 330 Correction Officers and DOC supervisors.

“The ratio seems way off,” said Council Member Keith Powers.

Council Member Andy King, who chaired the committee, questioned how the spirit of Raise the Age could be implemented when the individuals working with the adolescents were predominately Correction Officers.

“How do we change the culture if you’re waking up at 2:00 a.m. and seeing a Correction Officer dressed in a police uniform?” he asked.

The city plans to transition Correction Officers out of the facility within a year-and-a-half. Felipe Franco, ACS’s Deputy Commissioner for the Division of Youth and Family Justice, explained that Correction Officers were needed until enough Youth Development Specialists could be hired and trained to fully run Horizon.

First Batch to Crossroads

Though 175 Youth Development Specialists had been hired and trained as part of Raise the Age, all of them will be going to Crossroads Juvenile Center, which will house newly-arrested 16- and 17-year olds. That’s because juvenile facilities were already understaffed, since 20 percent of Juvenile Counselors left the position last year, Mr. Franco noted.

Council Member Rory I. Lancman pointed out that the Raise the Age legislation had been passed 18 months earlier, suggesting that the de Blasio administration had sufficient time to resolve the issue.

“I’m very unsympathetic to the problems you’re having staffing Horizon,” he said.

On top of the criticism, three correction unions—COBA, the Correction Captains Association and the Deputy Wardens Association—filed a suit against the city arguing that the uniformed members were not hired and trained to deal with youthful offenders. A Queens Supreme Court Judge issued a temporary restraining order Sept. 17 to delay the transfer of Correction Officers, but it was overturned a day later. A hearing will be held Oct. 1.

No Contingency Plan?

When asked how ACS and DOC planned to run Horizon if the Court decided Correction Officers did not belong in the facility, the officials said that they didn’t want to speculate on a legal matter.

“So the Plan B is to win in court?” asked Council Member Bob Holden.

The officials tried to assuage concerns that staffing the facility with Correction Officers would be creating a “mini-Rikers.” They said that the Correction Officers were used to working with 16- and 17-year olds and had received a four-day training on safe crisis-management.

That statement was disputed by a frustrated Mr. Husamudeen, who said that his members were used to working with 16- and 17-year-olds who were considered adults. The union also pointed out that a four-day prep period paled before the six months of training they received to work as law-enforcement officers.

“Would you send a Police Officer into a burning fire?” he asked. “There’s never been a time in my 30 years working as a Correction Officer that Correction Officers have worked with this population.”

Mayor’s Inconsistency

Mr. Husamudeen noted that the state had still not come to a decision regarding whether COs at Horizon would be able to use pepper spray on adolescent offenders. He reiterated his belief that it was hypocritical for the de Blasio administration to say it was moving youthful offenders from Rikers because Corrections Officers were abusive but then expect them to staff the juvenile-detention centers.

“The uniform I’m wearing does not belong at Horizon,” he said.

Anthony Wells, president of District Council 37’s Local 371, which represents the Youth Development Specialists, supported the COBA leader. “He [doesn’t] want to be there and we don’t want them there,” he said.

He slammed the city for not asking to push back the Oct. 1 deadline. “They have a plan but is it the best plan? No,” he said, adding that he disagreed with the officials’ explanation about why they will staff Horizon with Correction Officers. “You want them there because you have no choice,” Mr. Wells said.

When Council Member King asked the de Blasio administration how the Raise the Age rollout would be handled differently if it had more time, they skirted the issue, saying it had accomplished enormous feats, including adding Probation staff and changing court processes.

“What they should have said was ‘we wouldn’t use Correction Officers,’” Mr. Wells said.

The officials addressed other concerns, including the fact that they were working around the clock to make renovations at both juvenile centers. They also insisted that the state denying a waiver that would have allowed newly-arrested adolescent offenders to share the same space as 16- and 17-year old offenders from Rikers would not interfere with Raise the Age being implemented because the population of youth in Rikers had dropped over the past four years. There were 94 16- and 17-year olds in Rikers at the time of the hearing.

 “With the timeline that we have, we are trying to move mountains,” said Dana Kaplan, Deputy Director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. “I am certain that come Oct. 1 we will be ready.”

Council Member Mark Gjonaj called it “misleading” to say that. “I would just hate the worst-case scenario—that a life is lost—because we were not prepared, whether it be a 16- or 17-year old, an administrator, a Correction Officer, or anyone else,” he said.

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