PEF leaders and OCFS employees to join concerned residents opposed to “close to home” initiative

Leaders of the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) will speak at public hearings on a new juvenile justice initiative being billed as “reform,” but which, in reality, will put youths and the community at risk.

The new Close to Home initiative focuses on reducing the placement of troubled youths in facilities operated by the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) and, instead, concentrates on moving troubled youths to privately run facilties in the very same neighborhoods where they got into trouble in the first place.

PEF leaders and members who work for OCFS will join parents of troubled youths and concerned residents to point out several deficiencies in the plan, including: the high percentage of youths who escape from private facilities, the lack of safety measures at the private facilties and the fact that 38 percent of the youths being moved into these neighborhood communities committed violent crimes.

The hearings are being held Monday, May 7, between 5 pm and 8 pm at Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn and again Tuesday, May 8, between 10 am and 1 pm at the Health Building, 2nd Floor Auditorium, 125 Worth Street, New York.

PEF members who have spent years nurturing, teaching and monitoring troubled youths will go on-the-record about the many success stories of youths who have turned their lives around in state-operated facilities. For many of the youths and their families, the last thing they needed to be was “close to home.”

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 54,000 professional, scientific and technical employees.

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