City Limits, W. Davis, May/June 2005 

Juvenile delinquents get sent upstate because it’s supposed to be a better environment than their homes. The Department of Probation has a new idea: Fix the family instead.

The number of young people sentenced to confinement upstate is shrinking.  There were 2,142 in 2002, down from 2,740 in 1995.

Yet more and more of them are being sent up on less serious crimes, according to data from the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS).  In 2002, for the first time in at least 10 years, admissions to juvenile facilities for crimes against property outnumbered those for crimes against people.

In 2002, 140 young people were confined for criminal mischief, such as graffiti or vandalism; 294 were for larceny -- shoplifting, snatching a bag from an empty office, and the like; and 111 were for riding in a stolen car.  Another 237 cases were related to drugs, marijuana included.  The Vera Institute of Justice reported last year that more than half of the juveniles incarcerated had committed misdemeanors.

Family Court judges make these decisions, but they're guided by the New York City Department of Probation.  The agency makes recommendations to judges about whether a young person should be locked up or paroled pending trial.  It can decide to divert a case before it even gets to court. 

If a defendant is found guilty, probation conducts an investigation and makes a recommendation.  Its reports are critical to judges' decisions in moving to "place" a young person in jail or let them go.

The Department of Probation is now making major changes in how it deals with young people like Nym.  It is collaborating with the Vera Institute's Project Esperanza to ensure that more young offenders remain in the community instead of jail. 

The changes are guided by a very simple fact: There's little if any evidence that locking up nonviolent young offenders does anything to reduce crime.  More than half of the boys released from state facilities are arrested again within nine months, and 81 percent within three years, according to a 1999 study commissioned by the state legislature.  That's not surprising, says Probation Commissioner Martin Horn: "When you send a kid to placement, you haven't done anything about the home the kid has come from, about the school situation."

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