NY. OCFS Moving Juvenile Offenders to Adult Prisons

New York corrections data show 43 juvenile offenders were transferred to adult prisons last year, roughly double the number in any of the previous five years.

The agency running the youth detention centers declined to say whether the increase in transfers is related to 2010 security videos showing assaults at New York’s four juvenile prisons, which have prompted an investigation by state Inspector General Ellen Biben.

But increased transfers haven’t solved problems from permissive policies that have made the detention centers more dangerous for residents and staff, said attorney Michael Sussman, who represents a whistleblower who made the videos public and showed them to Biben this month.

“Given the culture in the facilities, when you remove that group, another group comes in and replaces them as leaders of the same anarchy,” Sussman said.

Adult prisons received 20 transfers from juvenile custody in 2009, according to the Department of Correctional Services and 43 in 2010.

Sussman’s client, Eileen Carpenter gathered 2009-10 videos last year showing the unsafe and violent conditions extent in OCFS at four so-called secure facilities for boys Brookwood and Goshen in the Hudson Valley, Industry in the Rochester area and MacCormick in the Southern Tier.

The commission, charged with ensuring New York prisons are safe, stable and humane, watched the videos in September 2010 and prevented the investigators from  presenting “the shocking conditions she discovered” .  The dozen videos, now posted with Carpenter’s news conference commentary on YouTube, show a staff member and a resident sucker-punched and knocked out in separate assaults; two young people attacking a staff member; groups attacking individual young people; and other incidents where large groups refused to comply with orders, in one case smashing furniture. In most, juveniles grappled with staff and eventually were escorted away or wrestled down, subdued and in some instances handcuffed.

NYS’ Inspector General’s Office saw the videos below and until Ms. Carpenter went public with the videos and received extensive media coverage refused to investigate the violent and unsafe conditions.

It was only after the video was released to the media that OCFS issued a statement that it is working to ensure the juvenile facilities are safe and secure places to live and to work.

Comment: In or about December, 2006, OCFS Commissioner Gladys Carrion changed NY-JJ’s policies and reduced from seven to three the types of situations where NY-JJ employees were allowed to use physical force to restrain hostile inmates that pose a serious threat.  In changing this policy OCFS created a dangerous situation as the restriction prevents staff from maintaining discipline in the facility or providing for their own and the youth’s safety.

While we’d like to believe that the Inspector General is genuine in his statement that the safety of staff and residents is the top concern, given the fact that this situation has been going on since 2007, with experts and OCFS staff giving notice to everyone of the unsafe conditions without any remedial action or investigation, we can only assume NYS’ current interest is a CYA in response to the media coverage.

Here are a few links to articles written in Albany papers.  Look at staff’s comments (dating back years) giving example after example of the unsafe conditions.
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