City to Move Teens From Rikers to Rehab

Photo: Councilmember Mark Gjonaj, who spoke at hearing

 

By Hannah Grossman

 

On Thursday the City Council approved a resolution that would review the treatment of youth who were convicted or incarcerated before the so-called Raise the Age legislation, which raised the age of criminality to 18 from 16 to 18.

Raise the Age was passed in 2017. In a unanimous vote, the city legislators declared that certain teenagers convicted and treated as criminals before Raise the Age would be treated as juveniles.

Because of the changes, some teenagers at the city’s Rikers Island jail will have to be transferred to an ACS (Administration for Children’s Services) detention center. In order to accommodate the influx of juveniles from Rikers Island, a number of city Corrections officers would have to be transferred to ACS facilities, such as Horizon and Crossroads, both of which are rehabilitative programs for juvenile offenders.

There was criticism at Thursday’s session that the city was scrambling at the last minute, trying to meet certain mandated deadlines, and that the security of Corrections officers and the young offenders was being jeopardized.

Officers who would be hired to be with the youngsters are from the city Department of Corrections and are trained to use deadly force. They would wear the same uniforms as they would wear at Riker’s Island, and they could carry chemical agents and batons. It was unclear what protocols the officers would follow regarding the use of chemical agents.

The Raise the Age legislation of 2017 gave an Oct. 1 deadline for transferring of young inmates from Riker’s Island. Some argued on Thursday that the deadline would have to be pushed back, given the proximity of the date. However, the office of Mayor de Blasio said it will be prepared to make the transfers by that date.

Advocates for the young offenders and the mayor’s office were opposed to changing the deadline. “This is an aggressive timeline, but we will be ready. We will do the hard work that we are responsible for,” Dana Kaplan, deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, said.

“I would just hate the worst-case scenario, that a life is lost,” Councilmember Mark Gjonaj, a member of the Committee for Juvenile Justice, said.