Restler urges ACS population reduction and asks about case reviews

You know, I just...

I will say one of the most heartening conversations I had earlier this over the course of this first year of the Mondani administration was with Commissioner Richards, who said who was the first DOC commissioner who's ever said to me that he takes population reduction as a as a part of his mandate.

And I really am looking for ACS to take a similar approach.

It's not just who gets sent to you and dealing with it.

It's taking the leadership that the conditions are unacceptable.

We cannot have people sleeping in classrooms, on chairs, that we have to do better, and that we are going to take the lead in driving down this population and holding everyone else accountable and bringing the other agencies to the table.

Just trying to kind of understand how often does ACS conduct comprehensive reviews of the current population to determine if youth can be safely released?

So DC Ginsburg is going to give the detail, but I do just want to just add in here that, yeah,

fully agree, urgent, and the importance of collaboration in order to reach that, I'm hoping is what you're hearing from my

my panel partners here to work with ACS and then our other partners and community to ultimately be able to work towards that.

DC Ginsburg can give some of the specific detail to ACS's current actions.

So thank you for that question.

We have been looking at census since I came through the door.

As you are aware, I came into the seat from legal aid.

I spent 30 years at legal aid examining system issues that affected young people, particularly young people who are prosecuted in the adult

criminal court system.

We compiled lists every week.

We were sending lists of our longest stay youth to the youth part judges.

We were engaging council.

We were working with the 18B leadership.

To discuss how young people were being represented.

We were talking about what Ms.

Popper has referenced, and we are extremely, extremely grateful to the administration for looking at expansion for mitigation specialists, for the young people in our custody.

It's one of the most important

aspects of representation of teenagers is to create a complete record of the young

people's lives up until the time that they came into the courthouse.

And so we are optimistic that having this additional information,

as the DA referenced earlier, it's important for all parties in the courtroom to know everything about these young people so that cases can be disposed of.

We met with OCA.

The chief judge of New York State and the deputy judge came

to the facilities and met with our longest stay young people and heard from them specifically about how the length of stay was affecting their ability to stay engaged in programming, to stay engaged in mental health

services, the head of our Bellevue Juvenile Justice,

mental health services presented to OCA and the chief judges to explain the effects that length of stay had upon the young people's ability to stay engaged.

OCA facilitated visits of the facility and we facilitated meetings with both our staff and our facility leadership and our young people

so that the judges and the court staff could hear from individuals in the facilities about

how the length of stay

of stay was affecting our ability to deliver services, how it was affecting the quality of life for the young people and the staff, and our ability to deliver services to the young people.

We have seen a reduction in population since July of just over 8%.

We are very hopeful that that reduction continues.

Our young people are extremely engaged with us.

Our staff is engaged with us.

We are doing everything that we can to coordinate with both the city, the defense bar, the DA's offices, the

OCA to ensure that cases are adjourned more frequently, that the adjournments are shorter, that dispositions happen more quickly where it is possible,

understanding that some of these cases are extremely complex and need more time, and that adequate services are provided to the cases so that the information that the courts need to resolve these cases is available.

I think that we have successfully in New York City strengthened public safety and reduced incarceration for decades.

And it's only during the Adams administration that we saw things move horribly in the wrong direction.

And so I really hope that the most

M.

Donnie administration will hold itself accountable to these numbers and that we're going to be monitoring that census every single day and how we can safely drive it down and provide opportunities that are much better alternatives than detention.