Challenges and Priorities

NYS Council of Probation Administrators

By Ryan Gregoire, NYSAC Legislative Director

NYSAC recently published a podcast episode of County Conversations featuring a conversation on the everchanging roles and responsibilities of county probation departments, how recent changes to New York State’s criminal justice system have brought new responsibilities and challenges, and what county probation administrators will be advocating for in the upcoming legislative session.

NYSAC’s Legislative Director Ryan Gregoire was joined by Luci Welch, Orleans County Probation Director and President of the NYS Council of Probation Administrators, along with Bob Iusi, Warren County Probation Director, and Chair of the Legislative Committee for COPA.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

RYAN GREGOIRE

Two priorities on the program for probation departments are in regard to the raise the age statute that was enacted back in 2018. The first is a request to authorize law enforcement agencies to issue appearance tickets instead of an arrest in an immediate arraignment when an AO, an adolescent offender, is charged with most class D felonies. Can you tell us a little bit about what you have in mind for this modification for this population and why there's a struggle with assisting kids, AOs in particular?

BOB IUSI

Raise the age is a piece of legislation that's been in effect now for a few years. With that, we have a new class of offender called an adolescent offender, and that's for an individual between the ages of 16 and 18 who's charged with a felony. When that individual is apprehended by law enforcement, they're compelled to bring that individual in front of a court if in session. A lot of times they're not in session, so they have to find a local Magistrate that would be on call. Once you do that, there's county agencies that are responsible for finding specialized secured detention beds.

We've talked many times to NYSAC, who has been a great partner with local probation departments with this, trying to advocate for more specialized detention beds. There is a lack of detention beds in the state of New York, and it's a difficult process to access them. And if you access them, I'm in Warren County, in the Lake George area, our Sheriff's Department may have to go to Buffalo, Erie County, where there's a bed to bring an individual. What we're looking for is the flexibility for law enforcement on most class D felonies, which don't involve violence or acts against individuals, to have the discretion to issue an appearance ticket as opposed to getting everybody together.

When I say in front of a court, it's not only the judge, it's many county personnel, local law enforcement, court personnel. A lot of times a judge will insist, if you're going to come in front of me, you better have a bed for me and if there's no bed, that's eight, nine hours of manpower, which may be after hours trying to find something. Law enforcement, in my opinion, particularly where I work, has very good discretion. If they apprehend an individual with a class D felony, and we give them the opportunity to issue an appearance ticket to go in front of the court when the court is in session again, it gives flexibility not only for the court system, but for county agencies that are tasked with finding a specialized secured detention bed when many times there simply isn't one. So, we're looking to streamline the process. We're looking to have a common-sense solution and leave it to the discretion of the professionals who operate in that venue.

RYAN GREGOIRE

Like you said, Bob, these are not violent felonies against an individual. So, we're talking about cases of fraud, possibly some small burglary type of events. And like you said, it's up to law enforcement at their discretion to decide, is this appropriate for an arrest, or can we just give them an appearance ticket and have them come to court the next day that it's in business. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a child from Warren County to get in a car and drive 6 hours to Buffalo to then be brought back to Warren County the next day to appear in front of a court. So that request certainly is another great commonsense solution that makes sense. And will also help individuals, AOs, who are charged with these class D felonies as well.

So, Luci, staying on the vein of raise the age here and dealing with our youth, we just talked about some of the issues with trying to find detention beds. The second request from the probation departments is to allow law enforcement agencies to deliver an AO or a juvenile offender and juvenile delinquents to detention facilities after business hours without a securing order until the next business day. Why is that so important? What does it involve to try and get a securing order?

Well, generally in Orleans County, we have probation officers who are on call 24/7 for adolescent offenders. Essentially what happens is a lot of times when a law enforcement agency comes into contact with an adolescent offender, juvenile offender, juvenile delinquent, they will call us immediately to let us know what the situation is, and we'll try to work through that together. I agree with what Bob said earlier, that the law enforcement agencies are very competent when it comes to this and we should give them the discretion to be able to look at a situation and say, is this something that we could handle on our own, or do we need to get somebody else involved?

Years ago, when I was a probation officer, that's how things ran. We didn't have adolescent offenders, of course, at that time, but we did have juvenile offenders and juvenile delinquents and the police in the middle of the night would make a determination that this child needs to be held in a facility. Sometimes it's because the child can't be home. A lot of times the parents will say, this child cannot remain in my home, I don't have any control over them. They need to be sent somewhere else. The police really need to have the ability to what we call “sign in a child” at a detention facility without having the court involved. Getting the court involved is: somebody would be contacting the District Attorney's office or the County Attorney's office, depending on the situation could be at two in the morning, and then the judge has to come out to issue the securing order. It's really a lot of red tape that really isn't necessary at that point because you've got the law enforcement agencies and you've got the probation officer and sometimes Child Protective Services is involved.

They're making that call that this child needs to be placed in detention and the police have not been afforded that opportunity. There are some that contend that the law has not changed and does allow law enforcement agencies to deliver adolescent offenders and juvenile offenders and juvenile delinquents to a detention facility, but it's been tried several times without the securing order and each time we get turned away by the facility. Then what happens is if there's no place for the child to go, the police end up having to keep that child in custody until the court can actually see them. If we're talking that this incident happens on a Friday at, let's say 11:00 p.m. they may have to keep that child in their custody until Monday morning when the court is in session and that's really not good for the child as well.

They're better off in a facility, if that's what it's coming to, where people are trained to deal with their issues, can administer medication, all sorts of other things, instead of being in sometimes the custody of law enforcement for that time until the court comes in session.

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