GOSHEN – The State of New York has no beds available for adolescent offenders, and Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler is placing the blame squarely on Albany.
He said when the state changed the laws, they said they would have appropriate facilities in which to lodge these teen offenders, but he said they don’t.
“It is a problem that the State of New York has caused because when they passed the raise the age legislation, they said they would have these facilities for the kids, the facilities would be there to rehabilitate them, to give them services, whether its educational, drug treatment, or mental health. They have nothing. They are basically being sent right back to the environment they came from even after a judge remands them because there are no beds available for them,” Hoovler said.
On this past Friday, December 17, a 16-year-old Newburgh youth was charged with shooting a gun one week and arrested for possessing a weapon the following week.
Orange County Acting Supreme Court Justice Craig Brown ordered him to a specialized secure juvenile detention facility, but he wrote in his order that “there is no specialized secure detention facility that has availability for an adolescent offender and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office is not a specialized secure detention facility as authorized by the Office of Children and Family Services.”
As a result, Brown released the teen on his own recognizance to his mother’s home with electronic monitoring by the County Department of Probation.
Meanwhile, Orange County Police Chiefs Association President Paul Rickard was notified that the County Sheriff’s Office will no longer pick up any adolescent offenders remanded by the court unless a bed is pre-cleared as available.
Therefore, Rickard was told that if any police department has an adolescent offender who is remanded, they will have to hold onto that person until a bed is found.
