Chair asks public defenders about Intro 1104 and intake preparedness; Peoples explains right to counsel
Brooks-Powers asks whether public defenders' clients are prepared for intake interviews and whether counsel should be present. Peoples says many youth go through intake pre-filing before the right to counsel attaches, so defenders are often not involved, and says the Family Court Act allows intake information to be used post-fact-finding.
Commissioner Goodwin is doing a wonderful job.
We came in together.
I've been here for 40 years.
I've done family court, adult court.
I'm a supervisor by civil service title.
I know probation.
I live it.
I sleep it.
I know both sides of the table.
We're working together with the department to try to build up the agency.
But it's like grains of sand.
You can put that grains of sand in your hand, and all it's going to do is seep through.
If we don't face reality that probation officers need to be paid properly, what are we doing?
I'm coming back, and I'm going to keep saying the same thing over and over again.
I'm sorry.
But this is real.
For y'all to work, we have to have the proper staffing, absolutely, but we have to have the compensation.
And thank you for that.
And I offer the same to you as I did to the commissioner in terms of wanting to have conversations ahead of the upcoming budget cycle so that we can understand what are we advocating for that can
make it more attractive to talent to come into these positions to do this job.
Because as we are looking to transition from Rikers Island to borough-based jails,
the Department of Probation is going to be an important element to this, as well as the public defenders and the work that you all do, too.