Regular Session - February 12, 1997
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8 ALBANY, NEW YORK
9 February 12, 1997
10 10:03 a.m.
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13 REGULAR SESSION
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17 SENATOR CARL L. MARCELLINO, Acting President
18 STEPHEN F. SLOAN, Secretary
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
3 Senate will come to order. I ask everyone
4 present to please rise and repeat the Pledge of
5 Allegiance.
6 (The assemblage repeated the
7 Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
8 There being -- in the absence of
9 clergy, may we all bow our heads for a moment of
10 silence.
11 (A moment of silence was
12 observed.)
13 Can we have the reading of the
14 Journal.
15 THE SECRETARY: In Senate,
16 Tuesday, February 11th. The Senate met pursuant
17 to adjournment. The Journal of Monday, February
18 10th, was read and approved. Upon motion, the
19 Senate adjourned.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
21 Without objection, the Journal stands approved
22 as read.
23 Presentation of petitions.
24 Messages from the Assembly.
25 Messages from the Governor.
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1 Reports of standing committees.
2 The Secretary will read.
3 We'll go to motions and
4 resolutions.
5 The Secretary will read.
6 THE SECRETARY: By Senator Rath,
7 Legislative Resolution, commemorating March 1997
8 as Women's History Month.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
10 Senator Rath.
11 SENATOR RATH: Yes, Mr.
12 President. I would like to encourage all of the
13 members of the Senate to join me in recognizing
14 March as Women's History Month through the
15 vehicle of the resolution that we are presenting
16 here today.
17 I don't think we need to spend
18 any time talking about the importance of this
19 particular recognition. I think what's
20 important is that we move forward asking all the
21 women of New York State to join us in this
22 recognition and, again, through the vehicle of
23 this resolution we can do it. I urge its
24 adoption.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
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1 Senator Rath, are you urging all Senators to be
2 on the resolution?
3 SENATOR RATH: Yes. I'm urging
4 everyone to join me.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
6 Okay. Then without objection, we'll place
7 everyone's name on the resolution unless the
8 desk is otherwise notified.
9 The question is on the
10 resolution. All in favor signify by saying
11 aye.
12 (Response of "Aye".)
13 Opposed, nay.
14 (There was no response.)
15 The resolution is adopted.
16 I believe we have another
17 resolution by Senator Rath.
18 SENATOR RATH: Thank you, Mr.
19 President.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
21 Secretary will read the title, please.
22 THE SECRETARY: By Senator Rath,
23 Legislative Resolution, congratulating the Girl
24 Scouts of the United States of America upon the
25 occasion of its 85th Anniversary.
836
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
2 Senator Rath.
3 SENATOR RATH: Yes, Mr.
4 President. Like the previous resolution, the
5 Girl Scouts don't need someone like me to talk
6 about how wonderful they are and how important
7 an organization they are. I think it's
8 important that, as a governmental body, we note
9 the anniversary -- the 85th Anniversary, and
10 again, I would like all my colleagues to join me
11 on this resolution.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: All
13 right. Unless -- we'll use the same procedure
14 as before. Unless the desk is notified
15 otherwise, everyone will be placed on the
16 resolution.
17 The question is on the
18 resolution. All in favor signify by saying
19 aye.
20 (Response of "Aye".)
21 Opposed, nay.
22 (There was no response.)
23 The resolution is adopted.
24 Senator Skelos.
25 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President,
837
1 at this time if we could have the reading of the
2 non-controversial calendar.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
4 Secretary will read.
5 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
6 95, by Senator Johnson, Senate Print 244, an act
7 to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
8 establishing a presumption that a child has been
9 permanently removed.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
11 Read the last section.
12 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
13 act shall take effect immediately.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
15 Call the roll.
16 (The Secretary called the roll.)
17 THE SECRETARY: Ayes 33.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
19 bill is passed.
20 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
21 96, by Senator Skelos, Senate Print 333, an act
22 to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
23 increasing the penalties for custodial
24 interference.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
838
1 Read the last section.
2 THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
3 act shall take effect on the 15th day of
4 November.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
6 Call the roll.
7 (The Secretary called the roll.)
8 THE SECRETARY: Ayes 33.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
10 bill is passed.
11 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
12 97, by Senator Maziarz, Senate Print 402, an act
13 to amend the Criminal Procedure Law, in relation
14 to plea bargains and felony sex offenses.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
16 Read the last section.
17 THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
18 act shall take effect on the first day of
19 November.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
21 Call the roll.
22 (The Secretary called the roll.)
23 THE SECRETARY: Ayes 34.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
25 bill is passed.
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1 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
2 98, by Senator DeFrancisco, Senate Print 488, an
3 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law, in
4 relation to the collection of court-imposed
5 financial obligations.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
7 Read the last section.
8 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
9 act shall take effect immediately.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
11 Call the roll.
12 (The Secretary called the roll.)
13 THE SECRETARY: Ayes 36.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
15 bill is passed.
16 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
17 103, by Senator Saland, Senate Print 816, an act
18 to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
19 authorizing restitution for expenses.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
21 Read the last section.
22 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
23 act shall take effect on the first day of
24 November.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
840
1 Call the roll.
2 (The Secretary called the roll.)
3 THE SECRETARY: Ayes 36.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
5 bill is passed.
6 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
7 104, by Senator Spano, Senate Print 882, an act
8 to amend the Penal Law, in relation to the crime
9 of criminal employment.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
11 Read the last section.
12 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
13 act shall take effect on the first day of
14 November.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
16 Call the roll.
17 (The Secretary called the roll.)
18 THE SECRETARY: Ayes 36.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
20 bill is passed.
21 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
22 107, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 889, an act
23 to amend the Criminal Procedure Law, the Public
24 Health Law and the Family Court Act, in relation
25 to the authorized destruction of dangerous
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1 drugs.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
3 Read the last section.
4 THE SECRETARY: Section 5. This
5 act shall take effect on the first day of
6 November.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
8 Call the roll.
9 (The Secretary called the roll.)
10 THE SECRETARY: Ayes 36.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
12 bill is passed.
13 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
14 112, by Senator Present, Senate Print 535, an
15 act authorizing the Commissioner of General
16 Services.
17 SENATOR PATERSON: Lay it aside.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: Lay
19 the bill aside.
20 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
21 135, by Senator Rath, Senate Print 2180, an act
22 to amend Chapter 708 of the Laws of 1992.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
24 Read the last section.
25 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
842
1 act shall take effect immediately.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
3 Call the roll.
4 (The Secretary called the roll.)
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
6 bill is passed.
7 THE SECRETARY: Ayes 36.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
9 bill is still passed.
10 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
11 149, by Senator Saland, Senate Print 2379, an
12 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law.
13 SENATOR PATERSON: Lay it aside.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: Lay
15 the bill aside.
16 Senator Skelos, that completes
17 the non-controversial calendar.
18 Senator Skelos, may we return to
19 standing committees. We have a report at the
20 desk.
21 The Secretary will read.
22 THE SECRETARY: Senator Maltese,
23 from the Committee on Elections, offers up the
24 following bills:
25 Senate Print 156, by Senator
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1 Maltese, an act to amend the Election Law, in
2 relation to time of opening of polls;
3 158, by Senator Maltese, an act
4 to amend the Election Law, in relation to
5 extending filing deadlines;
6 560, by Senator Goodman, an act
7 to amend the Election Law, in relation to
8 candidate biographies;
9 912, by Senator Larkin, an act to
10 amend the Election Law, in relation to the hours
11 for voting;
12 1219, by Senator Maltese, an act
13 to amend the Election Law, in relation to party
14 recommendations;
15 1354, by Senator Maltese, an act
16 to amend the Election Law, in relation to making
17 certain technical corrections;
18 1443, by Senator Maltese, an act
19 to amend the Election Law, in relation to the
20 form of ballot; and
21 1468, by Senator Maltese, an act
22 to amend the Election Law, in relation to the
23 use of new voting systems.
24 All bills directly for third
25 reading.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: All
2 bills are direct to third reading.
3 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
5 Senator Skelos.
6 SENATOR SKELOS: Senator
7 Present's bill, Calendar Number 112, would you
8 lay it aside for the day.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
10 bill is laid aside for the day at the request of
11 the Acting Majority Leader.
12 SENATOR SKELOS: And at this time
13 would you take up Calendar Number 149, by
14 Senator Saland.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
16 Secretary will read.
17 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
18 149, by Senator Saland, Senate Print 2379, an
19 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law, the
20 Executive Law, the Family Court Act and the
21 Penal Law, in relation to enacting the Juvenile
22 Justice Act of 1997.
23 SENATOR PATERSON: Explanation.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
25 Senator Saland, an explanation has been
845
1 requested by Senator Paterson.
2 SENATOR SALAND: Thank you, Mr.
3 President.
4 Mr. President, my colleagues, the
5 bill before us currently is a Governor's program
6 bill, the Juvenile Justice Accountability and
7 Procedural Reform Act of 1997.
8 This bill reflects the coming
9 together of the Senate Majority and the
10 Governor, an issue of great importance to people
11 throughout New York State.
12 What it does, ladies and
13 gentlemen, is to attempt to take a system, a
14 juvenile justice system that substantially
15 represents a system that was created probably
16 somewhere in the area of 35 or so years ago, a
17 system that was created at the time of Ozzie and
18 Harriet's children, a system that perhaps
19 reflected the types of crimes that Ozzie and
20 Harriet's children might have been engaged in,
21 such as perhaps car theft, joyriding, petty
22 theft, truancy, a system that was not designed
23 to deal with the types of violent crime with
24 which our juvenile justice system currently
25 finds itself, a system in which not only is the
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1 nature of the crime severely heinous but at
2 times gratuitous, defying logic of any of our
3 criminal justice authorities.
4 What this bill does on the one
5 hand is to create a mechanism that's going to
6 say if you're going to engage in violent
7 criminal conduct, there are going to be
8 consequences and, to that effect, what this bill
9 does is to dramatically increase penalties for
10 those who engage in violent crime. It does it
11 both on the criminal justice side of the
12 equation and the Family Court side of the
13 equation.
14 It says that if, in fact, you
15 engage in violent crime, you're going to find
16 that the law enforcement mechanism in this state
17 is going to be far better armed than it has been
18 previously to deal with that crime because,
19 among other things, it says that in Family Court
20 procedures there will be search warrants
21 available. There will similarly be the ability
22 to provide a look back in Criminal Court, for
23 instance, where there's been a Y.O. felony. If
24 you commit a second within five years, there
25 will be the ability to look back and look at the
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1 prior, in effect, as a predicate.
2 There will be arrest warrant
3 procedures for juvenile delinquencies, juvenile
4 delinquency in addition to search warrant
5 procedures. There are elements of restitution
6 and community service that are added to the
7 juvenile justice portion, to the Family Court
8 procedure. There are a number of new designated
9 felonies that are added.
10 This is but a small component of
11 what happens on the Criminal Court and the
12 Family Court side, but this bill is certainly
13 not blind to the fact that these very same
14 youths are, if for no other reason than their
15 age, going to be back into the community.
16 It also recognizes the reality
17 that New York's juvenile justice system has been
18 inadequate, witnessed by the fact that New
19 York's juvenile crime rate is twice the national
20 average, that New York's juvenile homicide rate
21 is 40 percent above the national average. It
22 recognizes that it's time to leap from the
23 1960s, not merely to the 1990s but to the 21st
24 Century.
25 It recognizes that there are a
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1 host of young people who engage in criminal
2 conduct, much of which is non-violent. It
3 recognizes that we have to emphasize, in
4 addition to a more stern deterrent approach to
5 those who engage in violent crime, the reality
6 that there has to be alternatives available to
7 try and direct these youths away from a life of
8 crime, keeping in mind that the recidivism rate
9 of those who go through our juvenile justice
10 system is probably somewhere in the area of 70
11 to 75 percent.
12 It also recognizes the inordinate
13 expense associated with placing juveniles in
14 secure facilities, sometimes at a cost in excess
15 of $80,000, and in using alternatives we not
16 only have a much more cost-effective means of
17 diverting young people but also affording them
18 the opportunity to take charge and control of
19 their lives and to venture out into a world in
20 which there will be opportunity for them.
21 It creates an alternatives
22 commission with appointments to be made by both
23 the Governor and the Legislature. What it does
24 is it, in effect, says we want to make sure that
25 those alternatives that this commission will
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1 devise will be alternatives that, in effect, do
2 the job because it provides for an analysis and
3 review of those alternatives to ensure that they
4 are, in fact, effective.
5 It involves families in Family
6 Court proceedings. It enables families to be
7 part of the alternatives programs. It creates a
8 dispositional services plan. Far too often what
9 occurs, particularly in the Family Court side of
10 the equation, is that a youth who has committed
11 a violent act gets placed in a secure facility
12 and in a matter of months, that youth
13 disappears. The court has no idea where he or
14 she is. They are back on the street only to
15 again recidivate, engage in further criminal
16 activity and get back in that revolving door
17 that seems far too often to be the hallmark of
18 our juvenile justice system.
19 It's interesting to note that
20 under the existing law, that a young person who
21 finds himself or herself in the Family Court can
22 only be sentenced to a restrictive placement
23 where they have caused serious physical injury
24 and the person to whom they have caused that
25 injury is over the age of 62 years.
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1 Now, it seems to me that the
2 logic of saying that, in effect, you get a bite
3 of the apple, to virtually come close to killing
4 somebody, in some instances, and as long as that
5 person is not over the age of 62 years, you
6 can't put them into a secure placement. What
7 this bill says is anybody who engages in that
8 kind of conduct, any youth who engages in that
9 kind of conduct will, in fact, wind up with a
10 secure placement, will find themselves not only
11 in a secure placement but one in which the
12 sentencing structure has been altered to ensure
13 that you'll serve a minimum sentence in a secure
14 facility before you have the ability to be
15 transferred into a residential facility.
16 This bill is an integrated one,
17 one which I think addresses the issue on the
18 criminal justice side very well. It addresses
19 the issue on the Family Court side. It
20 recognizes the importance and the reality of
21 alternatives as being a measure of the success
22 of any endeavor to reform the system and what it
23 basically says is we have lagged woefully beyond
24 the majority of states in this country, most of
25 whom have reformed their systems over the course
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1 of the past six to eight years. This presents
2 us with the opportunity not only to join our
3 colleagues in other states but to make our
4 streets safer, to afford opportunity to young
5 people through a mechanism that's been sorely
6 lacking through this alternatives commission
7 that we will create and it says, in effect,
8 1997, after any number of years of flirting with
9 the issue, is the year in which we can finally
10 accomplish success.
11 The Speaker, Speaker Silver, as
12 recently as December of this past year, has
13 indicated his desire to deal with the issue of
14 juvenile justice. He has spoken in terms of
15 many of the things that I think you'll find in
16 this bill, and I'm hopeful that passage of this
17 bill today will be the catalyst that will ensure
18 quick and successful action and bring agreement
19 and results, the results of which, I think will
20 better the constituencies of each and every one
21 of the 61 members of this house and improve the
22 lives and lot not only of those in their
23 respective districts, not only of those who are
24 concerned about the safety of their streets but
25 again afford greater opportunity for young
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1 people, those who this system can be devised to
2 ensure just that very opportunity.
3 Thank you, Mr. President.
4 SENATOR CONNOR: Mr. President.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
6 Chair recognizes Senator Nozzolio.
7 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you, Mr.
8 President.
9 Mr. President, my colleagues, I
10 rise to support this legislation. As Chairman
11 of the Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections
12 Committee, I personally wish to thank Senator
13 Saland as Chairman of the Children and Families
14 Committee for his attention to this important
15 matter, and especially I wish to thank Governor
16 Pataki for taking another step in our efforts to
17 establish zero tolerance for violence in this
18 state, first with ending work release for
19 violent criminals, secondly for establishing a
20 new era of zero tolerance for violence in
21 domestic situations, in domestic matters. This
22 is another step in establishing zero tolerance,
23 no acceptance of violence in our society.
24 It's a disturbing reality that
25 young teenagers in our state are committing an
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1 alarming number of serious adult crimes. Just
2 two weeks ago a 16-year-old in Rochester was
3 violently attacked in a robbery attempt by two
4 14-year- olds. That individual lay near death,
5 fought back and is fortunately recovering but
6 nonetheless it is indicative of the type of
7 violence we're seeing in our society where young
8 people are preying on other young people in a
9 very violent way.
10 By increasing sentences for
11 juvenile offenders, establishing additional
12 victims rights procedures, encouraging parental
13 accountability in opening up our courts, we are
14 going to see with the passage of this
15 legislation landmark steps in trying to
16 eliminate youth violence.
17 Juvenile rates for violence in
18 our state and in our nation have tripled during
19 this last decade. Even though crime generally
20 is seeing a decrease, the incidence of murder,
21 robbery and rape by those who are under the age
22 of 18 has increased dramatically.
23 Mr. President, it's clear that
24 our current approach to dealing with serious
25 crime committed by youth is not working.
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1 Children are representing the fastest growing
2 segment of the criminal population.
3 We need to check that growth. We
4 need to establish very reasonable laws as
5 presented here today to check that growth, and
6 that's why I think Governor Pataki's Juvenile
7 Justice Accountability and Procedural Reform Act
8 of 1997 is just the right prescription to
9 present to solve this growing problem.
10 Mr. President, thank you very
11 much for the opportunity to comment on this
12 issue.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
14 Thank you.
15 The Chair recognizes Senator
16 Connor.
17 SENATOR CONNOR: Thank you, Mr.
18 President.
19 Mr. President, I'm going to show
20 my age a little bit because I well remember
21 Ozzie and Harriet, and I remember how it would
22 start out in the morning with David and Ricky
23 coming down and Ozzie would be sitting there and
24 Harriet would put out a nice breakfast for Ricky
25 and David. They were nicely dressed, sent off
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1 to a good public school. When Ozzie and Harriet
2 had to go out, their neighbor Thornie would come
3 over and watch the boys. When they came home
4 from school, Harriet was there to ask them how
5 school went and provide them with a snack. They
6 lived in a comfortable, supportive, warm
7 environment not free of government because I
8 said they went to a quality public school where
9 the teachers cared. They lived in a
10 neighborhood where the neighbors cared about
11 each other and they weren't teenage criminals.
12 Senator Nozzolio just said the
13 fastest growing crime -- criminal population is
14 among youth, but we have a bigger problem than
15 that, Mr. President. The fastest growing
16 portion of the New York population over the next
17 ten years, fifteen years, are youth.
18 It's estimated that while New
19 York State's population will grow overall in the
20 next 15 years by 2 percent, that portion of the
21 population that falls in the 15- to 19-year-old
22 category will increase by 21 percent. So to the
23 extent that some of the decrease we've seen in
24 crime is due to better policing, tougher laws,
25 we also all know it has something to do with
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1 demographics, but the demographics, Mr.
2 President, is going to come back and bite us
3 over the next 15 years and overall in the United
4 States while crime is down, crime among youth is
5 up, albeit today's Times Union shows the latest
6 statistics -- and it's a happy statistic -
7 shows that we've actually had recently a dip in
8 youth crime as well. That's good, but I don't
9 think anyone thinks that it's a trend.
10 I pointed out the other aspect of
11 the Ozzie and Harriet life because one of my
12 colleagues gave me a statistic yesterday that
13 was rather startling. It seems that 80 percent
14 -- now, we all know, Mr. President, some of my
15 colleagues who served there, there are 150
16 Assembly Districts in New York State, 150. My
17 colleague told me that -- and you'll probably
18 hear more about this, but I just want you to
19 think about this -- that 80 percent of the
20 prison population in New York State -- and we
21 know that prison population has grown
22 exponentially in past years as we've been
23 confronted -- and even through the Cuomo years
24 of building new prisons, we're under pressure to
25 agree to more prisons now -- 80 percent of that
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1 population comes from seven Assembly Districts.
2 Rather startling! Rather startling, but doesn't
3 it suggest a solution?
4 Now, I agree we should get tough
5 but taking a page from Governor Pataki, I think
6 we should get tough and smart, tough and smart
7 because with this population increase we're
8 facing in that age category in the next 15
9 years, we can't afford to put all them in jail,
10 nor can our citizens afford to be the victims,
11 but think about that statistic. Doesn't it tell
12 you where we ought to focus?
13 What stops us from focusing on
14 that? Politics, politics. In one house of the
15 Legislature, I dare say probably no one in the
16 Majority represents any of those seven Assembly
17 Districts. So I understand it's tough to go
18 home to wherever in the state and say, We want
19 to send some extra funds to these seven Assembly
20 Districts that I don't represent, that you've
21 never visited. I understand you get re-elected
22 bringing home the pork to your district, but we
23 have a responsibility, it seems to me, to
24 transcend those kind of political concerns when
25 there's such a glaring statistic that begs the
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1 solution. Doesn't it beg the solution? If we
2 could only do something about education, health
3 care, opportunity, intensive work with youth and
4 children -- not youth. You know, by the time
5 you got the 12-year-old killer or the
6 13-year-old killer -- and it's why we have to
7 get tough because we do have to protect the
8 public -- but those 14-year-old killers are lost
9 causes already. A child that's so brutalized
10 that they have no empathy for a victim and can
11 commit these crimes by that age, I think any
12 psychologist would say they're probably a lost
13 cause. They're hopeless and that's why, of
14 course, we need to get tough. We have to
15 protect people, but how do we prevent this
16 enormous population of three- and four- and
17 five-year-olds and a few not yet born who will
18 be there in 10 or 15 years at 14 and 15 years
19 old, how do we stop them from going down that
20 road, because when they get there, they're lost.
21 Now, when I say get smart, I
22 think we have to look at prevention. I know -
23 I know we hear about midnight basketball and all
24 that stuff that was a big hullabaloo a couple
25 years ago in the federal crime package. I'm not
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1 talking about that. I'm talking about following
2 suggestions that we get from Bill Bennett. You
3 know Bill Bennett, hardly a liberal crusader, in
4 Body Count, he talks about the need to really
5 focus on prevention.
6 The Rand Institute did some
7 amazing studies. They did some comparisons.
8 They did a two-year Rand Corporation study,
9 compared the impact of "three strikes and you're
10 out" laws, the goal being lengthy imprisonment,
11 and prevention development efforts that
12 encourage young people to stay in school that
13 teach parenting skills to high-risk families and
14 that provide preschool programs. Yes,
15 preschool. It's the three- and four- and
16 five-year-olds that you have to get these kids,
17 that you have to get control of the situation,
18 that you have to recognize some don't have
19 families. It's not that they're missing Ozzie
20 and Harriet. They don't even have one of them
21 that are effective parents. They have no
22 effective adult role model. That's the age you
23 have to catch them, if you're going to be
24 smart.
25 Rand found that California's
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1 "three strike" laws averted 62 serious crimes
2 for every $1 million spent on carrying out the
3 program, building, operating prisons, and so
4 on. In comparison, the study demonstrated that
5 for every $1 million spent on programs, these
6 parenting programs and educational preschool
7 programs, 250 serious crimes were averted per
8 year through graduation incentive programs, 160
9 prevented through parent training initiatives
10 and 70 were headed off by special delinquency
11 supervision programs.
12 Even as our Division for Youth
13 director testified last week pointing to these
14 findings, the most successful programs were
15 found to prevent five times as many crimes per
16 every dollar spent in incarceration. This study
17 reinforces the growing body of research showing
18 that a human development approach works to
19 reduce youth, family and community problems.
20 Where's the prevention? Where's
21 the Majority and the Governor following good
22 conservative thinking, good conservative,
23 cutting edge thinking like you get from Bill
24 Bennett about focusing on prevention?
25 Now we're in a budget process and
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1 it will be the usual fight and whatever, and
2 those programs that could do things like this
3 somehow or other will seem soft or get mushy,
4 liberal stuff. Oh, it's going to focus on some
5 inner city districts. What's that do for my
6 folks upstate, people will say. Well, I say
7 wake up. Wake up because while we have to get
8 tough, we just can't get tough enough, not tough
9 enough to deal with that bulge in the population
10 we're going to experience -- in that youth
11 population in the next ten or fifteen years, and
12 I would hope we would look at this as not an
13 issue that, Well, it doesn't affect my district,
14 what's my concern? It affects our entire state,
15 my colleagues, the entire state, and that's
16 obvious because we have this bill, this rush to
17 get tough. Fine. Get tough, but get smart.
18 Get smart, because you'll never be tough enough
19 and you'll never be able to afford fiscally
20 being tough enough to deal with this blooming
21 problem, but if we get smart now -- if we get
22 smart now, we can save a whole lot of money and
23 a whole lot of innocent victims of these crimes
24 and after all, when we get tough, yes, we
25 prevent future victims, but it's of little
862
1 consolation. It may be justice but it's of
2 little consolation to those who have already
3 been victims. Getting tough is always closing
4 the barn door after the livestock has escaped
5 and what your hope is, you won't have any future
6 incidents in that barn in terms of recidivism,
7 and so on, but at 15 or 16 or 17, a hardened
8 killer is a hopeless cause and we can't afford
9 to keep playing catch-up.
10 Now, you know, get tough, but if
11 we were serious about this, we wouldn't be
12 trying to do it by press release, rush the
13 Governor, Majority Republican proposal out here
14 even though the Assembly wants to get tough too
15 and they have their proposals. What we'd really
16 do if we were serious is we would legislate
17 getting tough. We would negotiate it.
18 I look at this bill -- and I
19 intend to vote for this. I intend to vote for
20 this. As I've said on other issues a year or
21 two ago, I'll vote for your press releases, but
22 let's get serious. Let's legislate, negotiate.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
24 Excuse me, Senator Connor. Can we -- it's
25 getting a little hard to hear in the chamber, a
863
1 little bit of noise. Can we take the
2 conversations outside if you have to.
3 SENATOR CONNOR: Thank you, Mr.
4 President.
5 But let's get serious. Let's
6 look at these statistics. I recommend Body
7 Count by William Bennett to all the members of
8 this house. Let's be serious about getting
9 smart because I remember in 1978 when we got
10 tough on juvenile justice, I remember voting for
11 that. I surprised myself as well as some of my
12 colleagues voting for it. It had nothing to do
13 with the fact that I had a primary about a month
14 later and juvenile crime was in the headlines.
15 People were concerned and we got tough. We
16 provided for five years to life for youth for
17 crimes like murder. We got tough, but nobody
18 thinks secure facilities for hardened youth is
19 going to do anything more than be a prep school
20 for future crimes and nobody -- and I don't
21 think the sponsors do -- I understand we got to
22 get tough but think about it. No one can stand
23 up here and say this will solve the youth crime
24 problem for the next 15 years. Let's get
25 smart.
864
1 Those seven Assembly Districts,
2 we can't manage that small a piece of New York?
3 It's like three percent of the turf in New York
4 is producing 80 percent of the prisoners and we
5 can't figure out how to replow that turf and
6 reseed it and grow children there to have hope,
7 to have a future, that don't turn to crime, that
8 aren't so brutalized?
9 I remember years ago there were
10 twins in the Bronx who were both before the
11 justice system at age 16 or 17, murders,
12 muggings and the estimates were that, you know,
13 they pinned a dozen or two serious robberies and
14 a couple of murders on each of them. They
15 estimated they had been a two-person crime wave
16 and been responsible for thousands and thousands
17 of muggings, and one of the newspapers went
18 around the neighborhood, couldn't find any
19 parents at all and they came up with the
20 startling thing. At age three and a half, these
21 kids were just put out on the street and never
22 had a home. They lived on the streets in
23 doorways and alleyways of the Bronx from age
24 three and a half to four until they were finally
25 captured and incarcerated at age 16. They stole
865
1 food. They ate out of garbage cans until they
2 got big enough to steal food and then they stole
3 food until they got big enough to steal money
4 from people to buy food.
5 Now, who doubts that if you put a
6 child of three or four years old totally on its
7 own, that it will end up a feral being? Why
8 not? Survival. How else does a four- or five
9 or six-year-old -- can't get a job. You steal
10 and you hate the world and you have no empathy
11 for anybody else, and an old woman with a
12 pocketbook, you have no empathy for that. You
13 want the pocketbook. Why wouldn't you if that
14 was your only life experience? You never knew
15 love. You never knew anybody caring for you.
16 You never had any hope or opportunity. They had
17 never gone to school either, but since they had
18 never gone to school, nobody in the City,
19 government or anywhere knew they were truants.
20 I mean, why would they think of going to
21 school? So let's get smart. All I see here is
22 the tough part. When are we going to get smart
23 and prevent what's to come?
24 I don't want -- I don't expect to
25 be here in ten or fifteen years. I don't want
866
1 whoever is here to be standing up and talking
2 about the explosion of juvenile crime and how we
3 have to have even tougher laws, and that's where
4 we'll be unless we get real smart now.
5 Mr. President, I'm going to vote
6 for this. I think it's flawed in some
7 respects. I look forward to voting on the real
8 bill when people get down to legislating instead
9 of rushing to grab the headlines on who's
10 tougher and we have a real bill, but I really
11 look forward to working with whoever wants to
12 develop some very, very needed, smart,
13 innovative programs to cut this problem off at
14 the root.
15 Thank you, Mr. President.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
17 Senator Saland.
18 SENATOR SALAND: Thank you, Mr.
19 President.
20 I listened intently to my
21 colleague, the Minority Leader's comments, and I
22 heard him make reference to being tough and
23 smart. I heard him make reference to the fact
24 that he thought politics was standing in the
25 way, and I would suggest to the Minority Leader
867
1 that if this is a mere political statement -
2 and I must remind him that this quest to reform
3 the juvenile justice system began back in 1995
4 when I introduced a bill and began working
5 closely with Governor Pataki and have worked
6 continuously with he and his staff through much
7 of last year, and you may remember that this
8 house passed a bill last year, a juvenile
9 justice reform bill. So this is not a rush, as
10 you put it, to come up with a quick fix. If
11 politics is what stands in the way, I would
12 suggest to you then you vote your conscience and
13 make a statement here and now and vote against
14 this.
15 I would suggest to you that this
16 is anything but a political statement. I would
17 suggest to you that this is a well reasoned
18 statement that is not merely tough but it is
19 smart.
20 We've created a dispositional
21 services plan. You may have read the bill, but
22 let me remind you of some of the things that
23 happens. Every Family Court in this state loses
24 track of violent juveniles. They walk out the
25 door. They get placed and in a vast majority of
868
1 incidents within six to eight months thereafter
2 they're back in the street. The court doesn't
3 know they're there. Nobody knows they're there,
4 and they do it again and again and again.
5 Alternatives, much needed. I
6 thought I drawled at them in some length, and
7 this Governor has put his money where his mouth
8 is because this Governor, Governor George
9 Pataki, has put $2.5 million in new money for
10 alternatives and, let me add, we're not talking
11 merely about paying lip service. We want these
12 alternatives, in effect, to be the best
13 alternatives. We don't want to commit to
14 mentoring. We don't want to commit to juvenile
15 juries. We don't want to commit to day
16 detention programs. We don't want to make those
17 commitments to any of those programs unless they
18 know -- unless we know they work, and this bill
19 endeavors -- and I'm not quite sure many other
20 states have endeavored to do this -- to make
21 sure they work. We want them evaluated. We
22 want them weighed.
23 Your advocacy of the cause of
24 Bill Bennett I find really much enlightening to
25 me, and I welcome it. My recollection -- I
869
1 didn't read his book. You may have read it, but
2 I have seen him on the talk circuit, and I do
3 know that his emphasis was on the decay of our
4 society and on the integral role that the family
5 has played in our society, the importance of
6 parenting and the importance of family and
7 development. I don't think he was necessarily
8 committing to government intervention in each
9 and every avenue of American life.
10 It's a reality, whether you look
11 at numbers of single-family households, whether
12 you look at the enormous number of out-of
13 wedlock births ever increasing. It's a
14 frightening reality.
15 This bill endeavors to take the
16 15-, 16-year-old that you referred to as a lost
17 cause -- and I'm not prepared to admit that the
18 livestock is out of the barn and it's too late
19 to close the door because I think, whether it's
20 based on demographics or whether it's based on
21 the reality of what goes on out in the street
22 every single day, that we can and will and must
23 do better and this is the vehicle that's going
24 to provide it, and I think that it's not too
25 late to close the door.
870
1 Yes, there are a number of souls
2 who have been lost. There were souls who were
3 lost this decade, last decade, the prior
4 decade. This is contemporary. This endeavors
5 to provide for the bad guys and gals who are
6 saying -- that 15- and 16-year-old that you
7 described -- you're going to get treated in a
8 fashion that's more criminal in nature, more
9 corrections in nature. There are consequences
10 of your acts. You will pay for them, but for
11 each and every one of them, there are many more
12 who we have to reach out to, and the
13 alternatives mechanism is the way we do it.
14 I don't want them placed either
15 in a prison or in a secure facility. I want to
16 use alternatives whenever and however we can
17 because not only are they cost-effective, which
18 is great for the taxpayer, but they keep them
19 out of a system that to date has been a system
20 that is basically a license to recidivate.
21 So this, yes, is tough, and I'm
22 happy that it's tough, and I'm glad that the
23 Governor and my Majority Leader have helped to
24 work to bring this out here today but it's also
25 smart. It's a lot smarter than anything that's
871
1 been on the books of this state at any time
2 dealing with juvenile justice and it's -- I
3 welcome the opportunity to become even smarter,
4 and if the Speaker who has spoken again
5 admirably about the need for tougher juvenile
6 justice laws has more to add to this mix, I'm
7 prepared to sit down with he and his
8 representatives, as I'm sure the Governor is,
9 and craft an even better bill.
10 This is the only game in town.
11 This is nothing new. This is the third year
12 we've endeavored to bring this out and to forge
13 agreement, and I'm pleased, couldn't be happier
14 that we're here on the floor with this today.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
16 Senator Abate.
17 SENATOR WALDON: I thought I was
18 next. I asked earlier when I came to the
19 chamber.
20 SENATOR ABATE: I would yield to
21 my colleague.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: I'm
23 sorry, Senator Waldon. We did not have your
24 name up here.
25 Senator Waldon.
872
1 SENATOR WALDON: Thank you. I
2 appreciate that, Senator Abate.
3 The bible says something like
4 this. "When I was a child, I spate as a child"
5 -- and I respectfully ask when I finish reading
6 this that Senator Saland yield to a question or
7 two. "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I
8 understood as a child, I thought as a child;
9 when I became a man, I put away childish
10 things. For now we see through a glass, darkly;
11 but then face to face. Now I know in part" -
12 SENATOR SALAND: Mr. President.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
14 Excuse me, Senator Waldon.
15 Senator Saland.
16 SENATOR SALAND: I can't
17 completely hear Senator Waldon because he's
18 down. If you -
19 SENATOR WALDON: I apologize for
20 that. Sometimes you fool yourself. You think
21 because you're a certain size that your voice
22 just resonates throughout this chamber.
23 SENATOR SALAND: It's my hearing,
24 I'm sure, Senator.
25 SENATOR WALDON: We'll correct
873
1 that, Senator. In the Bible it reads, "When I
2 was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as
3 a child, I thought as a child; but when I became
4 a man, I put away childish things. For now we
5 see through a glass, darkly; but then face to
6 face; now I know in part; but then shall I know
7 even as also I am known. And now abideth faith,
8 hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of
9 these is charity."
10 I would like to now share another
11 thought before I ask you some questions, my dear
12 colleague.
13 SENATOR SALAND: Excuse me,
14 Senator Waldon. If that's in Hebrews, ask
15 Senator Lachman.
16 SENATOR WALDON: I beg your
17 pardon?
18 SENATOR SALAND: I said if that's
19 in Hebrews, ask Senator Lachman.
20 SENATOR WALDON: This is in St.
21 Luke 18:16, "But Jesus called unto Him, and
22 said, 'Suffer little children to come unto me
23 and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom
24 of God'".
25 Now -- could you just take this,
874
1 please -- if the gentleman will yield to a
2 question or two. I want to set a tone.
3 SENATOR SALAND: Yes, Mr.
4 President.
5 SENATOR WALDON: I heard you
6 speaking earlier in response to what our
7 Minority Leader had said that you had not read
8 William J. Bennett's book Body Count but you are
9 familiar with him because you've seen him on
10 television, on talk shows and certainly you are
11 familiar with the Secretary, as a political
12 operative of long standing in this state, is
13 that correct?
14 SENATOR SALAND: You referred to
15 him as a political operative?
16 SENATOR WALDON: You.
17 SENATOR SALAND: I'm sorry?
18 SENATOR WALDON: That you, a
19 person in politics of long standing in this
20 state, are certainly aware of Secretary Bennett.
21 SENATOR SALAND: Oh, certainly.
22 SENATOR WALDON: As a result of
23 your awareness of him and his stature in the
24 Republican Party, do you put any credibility in
25 what he says?
875
1 SENATOR SALAND: I'm not quite
2 sure what the relevance of debating the comments
3 that may have been contained either in the
4 Secretary's -- former Secretary's book or on his
5 talk show circuit. I certainly believe he's a
6 bright and eloquent spokesman for many of the
7 things that he advocates. Some of them
8 certainly are integral parts of what many
9 conservatives feel are the social issues of the
10 day.
11 SENATOR WALDON: If the gentleman
12 would continue to yield.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: Do
14 you continue to yield, Senator?
15 SENATOR SALAND: Yes, Mr.
16 President.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: He
18 yields, sir.
19 SENATOR WALDON: Would it
20 surprise you, Senator Saland, if in his book at
21 first blush the Secretary appears to say that
22 harsh treatment is necessary because crime of a
23 violent nature is really up amongst young people
24 and he projects in his book that not only is it
25 up now but it is really moving very rapidly up
876
1 towards the year 2000.
2 SENATOR SALAND: At this stage of
3 my life, Senator Waldon, there's very little
4 that surprises me. I will take it as a given if
5 you're, in fact, telling me that. It's
6 certainly consistent with what I've heard from
7 others as well.
8 SENATOR WALDON: If the gentleman
9 would continue to yield, Mr. President.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: Do
11 you yield, sir?
12 SENATOR SALAND: Yes, Mr.
13 President.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: He
15 yields.
16 SENATOR WALDON: Would it also be
17 intriguing for you and maybe even somewhat
18 surprising if later in his work he stated that
19 harsh treatment -- harsh treatment, long
20 sentences, taking a punitive attitude in posture
21 only is counterproductive; it is not
22 cost-effective?
23 SENATOR SALAND: Again, if you're
24 telling me that, I will accept it as it is, but
25 I full well understand, and I assume you
877
1 understand, that one of the cornerstones of his
2 very essence is personal responsibility.
3 Personal responsibility is, in effect, what
4 drives, as best as I understand it, the essence
5 of Bill Bennett and, if we're going to debate
6 Bill Bennett, perhaps we should do it in the
7 members' lounge and get on with the substance of
8 this bill.
9 If you're telling me, does this
10 bill that's currently before you emphasize the
11 reality of personal responsibility, I will use
12 personal responsibility as being synonymous with
13 what I said before when I said, if there are
14 acts, there are consequences. If there are
15 acts, there are consequences. I believe that is
16 something that Secretary Bennett would probably
17 embrace.
18 SENATOR WALDON: Would the
19 gentleman continue to yield, Mr. President?
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
21 Senator, do you yield?
22 SENATOR SALAND: Yes, Mr.
23 President.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: He
25 yields, sir.
878
1 SENATOR WALDON: I assure you,
2 Senator Saland -- and you've known me for a long
3 time from our days in the Assembly, my days
4 here, my days in the Commission of Investigation
5 for the state -- that this is not an exercise in
6 futility, and though I may go around Robin
7 Hood's barn to get to where I'm going,
8 eventually I get there.
9 Are you familiar with the recent
10 Rand report?
11 SENATOR SALAND: Which of the
12 Rand reports?
13 SENATOR WALDON: Let me see if I
14 can quote it for you. This is a Rand Corpora
15 tion study which was conducted for two years,
16 was released this past year and speaks to the
17 issues of juvenile delinquency and punishment
18 and whether or not it is cost-effective to be
19 very punitive in that approach versus using
20 models which actually turn people around. In
21 that report, it stated, in effect, that $5.5
22 billion a year in a "three strikes" program was
23 estimated to produce an annual 21 percent
24 reduction in crime. However, by spending just
25 under one billion more on youth prevention
879
1 programs, the study found that the potential
2 reduction in crime could rise to twice that
3 rate. You're not familiar with that study, sir?
4 SENATOR SALAND: I am aware of
5 the study. I believe the Minority Leader made
6 reference to it in his comments as well. Again,
7 this bill deals with a juvenile justice system
8 and it is not a bill which at this current phase
9 is endeavoring to augment whatever may be the
10 types of programs which I'm sure you are
11 ultimately working your way to. We're dealing
12 with the commission of crime. We're dealing
13 with how we shall treat those who commit those
14 crimes and in the case where they're juvenile
15 delinquents, how we shall treat them in a system
16 which has been, by everybody's admission, I
17 would hope, woefully inadequate and how we shall
18 craft a system that will hopefully prevent these
19 young people once they have committed some
20 misdeed from finding themselves being propelled
21 down a path of more and far more serious crime.
22 You know, the reality is that
23 this is a universal. This is not an upstate
24 problem. It's not a downstate problem. It's
25 not a Western New York problem. It's not a Long
880
1 Island problem. This affects each and every one
2 of us to one degree or another in our respective
3 districts. Certainly nobody, regardless of
4 where you come down in this bill, can ignore the
5 extent of the violence, nor its gratuitousness,
6 nor the frequency with which far too many are
7 repeating it.
8 If you're saying we should
9 continue down this same path and just blindly
10 ignore and rely on a system that was substan
11 tially created back in the 1960s to address
12 what's going on, then I would say you're
13 divorcing yourself from reality. If you want to
14 stick your head in the sand and let it all pass
15 you by and swing and take shots for whatever
16 reason, then I would say you serve neither this
17 house nor your own constituency by doing that.
18 I think you've got to recognize
19 the enormity of the problem. I think you can do
20 whatever you would like with your statistics,
21 but is there anybody in your district -
22 certainly there's nobody in mine -- who thinks
23 the current situation, and I think, however
24 begrudging you might want to make it, I think
25 you would have to admit that this is a far
881
1 better way of dealing with the problem than is
2 what -- the means by which we currently endeavor
3 as woefully as we do to deal with juvenile
4 crime.
5 SENATOR WALDON: Would the
6 gentleman continue to yield, Mr. President?
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
8 Senator, do you yield?
9 SENATOR SALAND: Yes, Mr.
10 President.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: He
12 yields.
13 SENATOR WALDON: Have you ever
14 read my report on Unhealthy Choice: Prisons over
15 Schools in New York State?
16 SENATOR SALAND: No, I have not.
17 SENATOR WALDON: Would you please
18 give the gentleman a copy of my report. I'm so
19 glad, Senator, that you said what you just said,
20 that I should not want to keep my head in the
21 sand and that if I had an answer to this
22 problem, I should listen to that answer, no
23 matter from whence it cometh. Being that you
24 made that statement and being that you're
25 carrying the Governor's program bill, I would
882
1 hope that you would look at this report and look
2 at the statistics and data contained therein,
3 which I guarantee you if the state of New York,
4 in its wisdom, were to adopt some of the things
5 I propose, would eradicate the need, not only
6 for these youthful prison situations and
7 treatment modalities as you are prescribing, but
8 even for our adults.
9 In the report it says that 34.5
10 percent -- and you know this as well as I -
11 state school aid goes to New York City even
12 though we have 37 percent of the student
13 population, but what is so frightening about all
14 of this is that 46 percent of the total number
15 of persons arrested in New York City live in the
16 neighborhood served by the City's 16 poorest
17 performing schools, that over half of the
18 state's prison inmate population comes from a
19 geographic area which contains 11 of these
20 schools. That's 75 percent of state prison
21 inmates have no high school diploma and that 40
22 percent of them cannot read.
23 I submit to you, Senator -- and
24 now I will ask you a question -- I submit that,
25 one, if we correct the ills of the school system
883
1 in these SURR schools -- Schools Under Registra
2 tion Review -- we can correct the need to build
3 prisons and to intensify punitive measures
4 regarding the youth of the state and even to
5 some extent the adults of the state.
6 Do you see -- the question is do
7 you see a correlation between criminal behavior
8 and the absence of good school systems in the
9 city of New York? You said earlier -- before
10 you answer that, by the way -- that it is not a
11 downstate or upstate problem. I totally disagree
12 because 50 percent of the jails' populations,
13 the prisons', I should say, populations in the
14 state of New York come from downstate in these
15 areas. Do you see a correlation between the
16 absence of good schools and the prison
17 population and what you're trying to do with
18 this proposal?
19 SENATOR SALAND: I think what
20 you're attempting to do, Senator, is to expand
21 the parameters of the debate surrounding this
22 bill. Certainly I would assume that you're
23 absolutely elated by the Governor's proposal in
24 his STAR program in which he proposes to
25 increase the amount of aid to the city of New
884
1 York to where it reflects its 37 percent student
2 population overall versus the balance of the
3 state.
4 Crime, the causation of crime,
5 certainly is something that is not readily
6 explainable. Do some of the things that occur,
7 occur because of factors that can be measured?
8 Perhaps. Do some of them occur simply because
9 somebody at a given place and a given time feels
10 that they can take advantage of a situation?
11 Perhaps. Will providing universally similar and
12 identical education to every young person in the
13 state of New York eradicate crime? You may feel
14 that perhaps it will. Can we say that the
15 failure of some of the supporting social
16 structures is what's responsible for the cause
17 or causation of crime? I think if we go that
18 far, we basically say that taken to its ultimate
19 conclusion, poverty gives license to crime.
20 Failure to create a mechanism that somehow or
21 other is totally embracing and totally
22 encompassing in providing a uniform or
23 substantial form of benefits is what's required
24 and it may well be that there are people who
25 believe that. Do I think that there are
885
1 disadvantaged people? Certainly there are. Do
2 I think that we can do more for disadvantaged
3 people? Certainly I do. Do I think that that
4 is the explanation that explains what's going on
5 in our criminal justice system and in our
6 juvenile system? For me that's a terrible
7 stretch. I can't go that far.
8 I certainly will take a look at
9 your report. I'm not quite sure that I will
10 necessarily concur in whatever your conclusions
11 may be, but having presented it to me, I
12 certainly will take a look at it.
13 SENATOR WALDON: I thank you very
14 much for that, Senator.
15 Would the gentleman continue to
16 yield?
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
18 Senator, do you yield?
19 SENATOR SALAND: Yes, Mr.
20 President.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: He
22 does.
23 SENATOR WALDON: Senator Saland,
24 since 1981, New York State has seen its
25 investment in correctional services increase
886
1 four-fold, from 435.7 million in fiscal years
2 1981-82 -- fiscal year 1981-82 to almost 1.9
3 billion last year. During that same period,
4 school aid has only slightly more than doubled
5 from 4.27 billion to 9.99 billion, a two and
6 one-third-fold increase.
7 Getting back to what I asked
8 earlier in regard to the SURR schools, in regard
9 to the overwhelming number of people who
10 populate our prisons coming from just 11 schools
11 in the districts that I mentioned, does it not
12 make some sense to you that if the emphasis were
13 on education so that these people who are in our
14 prisons who cannot read, many of them cannot
15 read, those who read, read below a fifth grade
16 level understanding of English, many of these
17 people have no possibility of coming back to
18 society and working in decent jobs because
19 there's no rehabilitation going on in our
20 prisons. The programs which work like the DETAP
21 program that D.A. Brown has in Queens County
22 where all of those in that treatment program
23 stay out of prisons in the future except ten
24 percent, whereas the recidivism rate in the
25 general population in all kinds of treatment
887
1 modalities is 43 percent.
2 Does it not make some sense to
3 you that there should be a greater emphasis on
4 education and on shoring up young people before
5 they reach the third grade or the fifth grade or
6 whatever age it is that will cause them to turn
7 around and not have a life of crime so that we
8 can save the massive expenses that are required
9 to build prison cells and to incarcerate people
10 on the back end?
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
12 Before you answer that question, Senator, ladies
13 and gentlemen, please, the level of noise is
14 coming back up. If we could -- so we can hear
15 the debate.
16 Senator.
17 SENATOR SALAND: Thank you, Mr.
18 President.
19 Senator Waldon, again, let me
20 come back to the context of this bill and this
21 bill also has an aftercare component because
22 that -- that commission is also required to
23 provide for reintegration, but let me suggest to
24 you that notwithstanding what you're saying, I
25 cannot take that last leap and get to the point
888
1 where I say that the inability of somebody to
2 read, the inability of somebody perhaps to -- to
3 be computer-literate, those inabilities explain
4 maiming, killing, violating other people. There
5 is no justification for that, and regardless of
6 -- from whence you come or what your background
7 may be, I can't give license to that conduct.
8 Now, if you feel that we could be
9 doing better in the kinds of programs we're
10 providing educationally to our young people,
11 particularly in some of our more hard-pressed
12 areas, I would be blind if I told you that I
13 didn't -- I was not aware of that or didn't
14 agree with that, and that's part of a process
15 that -- which is not part of what we're doing
16 with this bill. That's a budget function that
17 gets negotiated separately and independently of
18 what we're doing here today.
19 SENATOR WALDON: Would the
20 gentleman yield just to another question or two,
21 Mr. President?
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
23 Senator Saland, do you yield?
24 SENATOR SALAND: Yes, Mr.
25 President.
889
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: He
2 yields.
3 SENATOR WALDON: Senator Saland,
4 you are very informed about the costs of
5 incarcerating people in this state, even our
6 juveniles.
7 SENATOR SALAND: Even? I'm
8 sorry. I didn't hear what you said. You said
9 even-something. I didn't hear what you said.
10 SENATOR WALDON: Even juveniles.
11 SENATOR SALAND: Thank you.
12 SENATOR WALDON: So I don't have
13 to walk you through the miasma that is, you
14 know, per cell to incarcerate, whether it's a
15 secure facility or not a secure facility, how
16 much to construct, the debt service on each
17 prisoner. We don't have to go through that
18 megillah, but what I would like to address
19 momentarily is that when we have programs,
20 alternatives to incarceration, which work and
21 which are parallel or in sync' at least with
22 what the Rand Corporation study says and which a
23 very learned personality, William J. Bennett,
24 has said in his book that treatment and
25 prevention measures are much more cost-effective
890
1 than imprisonment and incarceration and very
2 severe punitive approaches, could we not begin
3 to focus more as a state on the alternative to
4 incarceration phase to a greater extent than has
5 been proposed, not in this legislation but as a
6 policy and a philosophy for the state of New
7 York?
8 SENATOR SALAND: I certainly
9 would welcome that discourse. I certainly am
10 well aware of the importance of alternatives and
11 they're important for more than one reason.
12 They're important not merely for, as I explained
13 earlier, providing greater opportunity for
14 people to, in effect, find the right path, a
15 more appropriate and socially acceptable path,
16 but they're also important for a very sound
17 fiscal reason. They are a heck of a lot less
18 costly than putting somebody in a secure DFY
19 placement or putting someone into a DOCS
20 facility, but we're talking to some extent
21 apples and oranges.
22 Yes, there is opportunity by way
23 of educational opportunity is important, but one
24 of the prime functions of any society is public
25 safety and you really don't have to compromise
891
1 one in order to accomplish the other. I don't
2 believe you have to compromise public safety in
3 order to make commitments to education.
4 SENATOR WALDON: On the bill, Mr.
5 President.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
7 Senator Waldon, on the bill.
8 SENATOR WALDON: Thank you very
9 much, sir.
10 First, let me thank Senator
11 Saland for his patience in responding to my
12 queries, and I appreciate the patience of my
13 colleagues in listening to this portion of the
14 debate.
15 I absolutely disagree with
16 Senator Saland. He alluded to the fact that
17 perhaps my head is in the sand and that I'm not
18 being realistic in my perception of what's going
19 on. I sincerely believe, Senator, and my
20 colleagues, that if we do not change our
21 direction, change the rhythm of what we're doing
22 in regard to incarceration, that we're going to
23 have a burden that will overwhelm us in a very
24 few years, that if we don't begin to recognize
25 that the SURR schools hold the answer, if we
892
1 decide to put massive resources and support
2 systems and mechanisms around those kids who are
3 in those schools, we're going to have a problem
4 that will strangle New York State shortly after
5 the turn of the century.
6 I believe that unless we as a
7 body recognize that punishment doesn't do it,
8 punishment just doesn't do it alone -- and, by
9 the way, that doesn't mean that people who are
10 violent felony offenders shouldn't be in jail.
11 Some should never come out of jail, but it does
12 mean that the approaches we're using now are
13 going to be counterproductive, not only from a
14 social and a moral aspect but from a financial
15 bottom line aspect.
16 Recognizing what happens in the
17 SURR schools and in those Assembly Districts
18 downstate where the overwhelming majority of the
19 prison population comes from and addressing the
20 needs demanded by those areas is the answer. It
21 is the key that will allow us to have more money
22 for other services needed and desired by the
23 people of the state of New York.
24 I think that what you're
25 attempting to do, Senator Saland, is certainly
893
1 understandable. I think I understand what the
2 Governor wants to do in the short term and in
3 the long term. I sincerely believe that you
4 believe in what you're doing and that the
5 Governor believes in what he's doing, but I
6 think someone ought to stop for a moment and
7 look at the Rand Corporation study report, read
8 William J. Bennett's book, read my report and
9 listen to those of us who advocate for
10 alternatives to incarceration, but more
11 importantly, for saving the young people.
12 Suffer the little children to come unto us.
13 I leave you with this thought
14 from my favorite poet/philosopher. "He who
15 wears his morality but as his best garment were
16 better naked."
17 Thank you very much, Mr.
18 President, my colleagues.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
20 Thank you, Senator Waldon.
21 The Chair recognizes, with the
22 permission of Senator Abate, Senator Marchi for
23 a brief interruption.
24 SENATOR MARCHI: If the Senator
25 would yield just for the very briefest moment.
894
1 We're honored by the presence of people who are
2 -- hold major responsibilities in the United
3 States of Brazil because it is the United States
4 -- there is the United States of Brazil as well
5 as the United States of America -- and they're
6 here to observe and to interact with those
7 coordinating efforts that are made and if there
8 are agencies involved and the people that are
9 involved in presidential or executive and
10 legislative branches. So that they are here for
11 a period of four days and then they're going to
12 Washington and repeat that experience with major
13 exponents in the federal government, and I just
14 want to introduce them briefly because they are
15 -- they do carry important responsibilities and
16 I'm sure that all of us here on both sides of
17 the aisle are delighted that they've come and
18 visited with us, and I just wanted to introduce
19 them.
20 We have Mr. Eduardo Graeff, who's
21 currently chief congressional advisor to the
22 President of Brazil, and Ms. Rosinethe Monteiro
23 Soares, who is presently chief advisor of the
24 Liberal Party -- Liberal Front Party of Brazil,
25 and Ms. Beatriz Mendes Lacerda, who is the chief
895
1 of staff of Senator Jose Serra, an advisor to
2 the Federal Senate of Brazil, and Dr. Celio
3 Franca, who is advisor to the legislative
4 affairs in the ministry of the Environment of
5 Brazil.
6 I might point out that they're
7 accompanied by Walid Khayrallah, program manager
8 for the Center of Legislative Development, and
9 Peg Clement, who also holds that position as a
10 program manager at the Center for Legislative
11 Development at the University of Albany.
12 So we do appreciate your presence
13 here and we look forward to those opportunities
14 for further exchanges, and I will have one
15 shortly, and I would be very pleased, Mr.
16 President, if you would extend the greetings of
17 this Senate, all of us, to our distinguished
18 visitors and wish them a happy stay.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
20 Thank you, Senator Marchi.
21 We congratulate our guests from
22 Brazil. We hope you enjoy your visit and hope
23 that you bring back our best regards to your
24 colleagues in your country.
25 Thank you very much and welcome.
896
1 (Applause)
2 Senator Markowitz.
3 SENATOR MARKOWITZ: Thank you
4 very much.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
6 Read the last section -- Senator Markowitz
7 wishes to record his vote early.
8 Senator Skelos.
9 SENATOR SKELOS: Can I have the
10 last section read.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
12 Read the last section.
13 THE SECRETARY: Section 91. This
14 act shall take effect in 120 days.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
16 Senator Markowitz.
17 SENATOR MARKOWITZ: No.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
19 Senator Markowitz, you're recorded -- call the
20 roll. Please. I'm sorry.
21 (The Secretary called the roll.)
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
23 Senator Markowitz, your vote is?
24 SENATOR MARKOWITZ: No. Thank
25 you very much.
897
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: His
2 vote is in the negative. We'll withdraw the
3 roll call now, please, and continue on.
4 Senator Abate.
5 SENATOR ABATE: Thank you, Mr.
6 President.
7 On the bill.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
9 Senator Abate, on the bill.
10 SENATOR ABATE: I think one of
11 the hardest policies that we have to grapple
12 with is developing criminal justice policy.
13 It's an area that concerns just about all of us,
14 all our communities. We're talking about
15 people's quality of life, their fear, their
16 ability to live in their communities and work in
17 their communities and raise their children in a
18 manner where they can live and work safely, and
19 much of our criminal justice policy is developed
20 out of our concern for our constituents. We
21 hear their outrage. We hear their fear. We
22 hear their frustration, but our criminal justice
23 policy should not just respond to outrage. We
24 should not just do things that make us feel
25 better. We also must do things that make us
898
1 safer, and there's a distinction.
2 I agree with Senator Saland that
3 there are certain parts of this bill that make a
4 lot of sense. Violent youth need to be
5 punished. Many of them need to be separated. I
6 believe that crime victims need to have a role,
7 not just in our adult system but in Family
8 Court. They need to have an opportunity to be
9 heard, restitution. There are lots of things in
10 the bill that make sense. Some don't make so
11 much sense, but my problem is it goes half the
12 way. It presents half the solution.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
14 Excuse me, Senator. Can the conversations -
15 please.
16 Thank you.
17 SENATOR ABATE: It presents half
18 the solution to an enormous problem, and I agree
19 with Senator Connor that our hope is that this
20 bill gets amended and that it deals with the
21 entire picture because it's not about just
22 dealing with the violent kids that have already
23 gotten into trouble, but we have a huge problem
24 facing us within the next ten years. While the
25 national population increases 12 percent, the
899
1 population of kids 15 to 19 will increase by 21
2 percent. That's an enormous number of kids of
3 crime-prone age, and so, yes, we can deal with
4 the kids today that have committed violent
5 crimes. What are we doing for the kids in our
6 communities that are growing up to ensure they
7 don't enter into Family Court, don't graduate on
8 to the adult criminal justice system and end up
9 spending their lives in DFY facilities and jail
10 and prison?
11 So while there's one half of the
12 equation dealt with, let me deal with the other
13 half that I hope will be resolved and addressed
14 over time, and that we can do it in a
15 collaborative fashion.
16 This bill talks about one-tenth
17 of one percent of the monies invested in
18 prevention and treatment. Now, everyone says,
19 you know, the Governor is talking about
20 treatment and prevention, but where is the real
21 investment, and what I still contend, whether we
22 talk about alternatives to incarceration or drug
23 treatment, probation, everyone says they agree
24 that these are important entities. We agree
25 that Family Court should be resourced. To this
900
1 point, I've only heard rhetoric. I've never
2 seen that rhetoric accompanied by real dollars
3 and real investment.
4 So if we really want to go away
5 from making us feel better and dealing with
6 outrage, we have to do more than what this bill
7 says. We need -- and let me give some examples
8 -- commissions. You talk to probation. You
9 talk to the chief judge. You talk to
10 commissioners around this state, ATI, pretrial
11 services, for the last 15 and 20 years, model
12 programs have been designed around what needs to
13 be done in terms of aftercare, alternatives to
14 incarceration, development of intermediate
15 sanctions.
16 In my prior life I developed
17 intermediate sanctions. I've evaluated them.
18 There's tons of information about what works and
19 what doesn't work. What we don't need is
20 another commission. What we need is real
21 dollars investing in those programs and models
22 that are out there. They need to be
23 replicated. There shouldn't be a handful of
24 them in a few communities. Every county of the
25 state should have access to this money to
901
1 develop these intermediate sanctions. So no
2 commission. Let's talk about a program bill
3 that puts real dollars invested in these
4 programs.
5 What this bill needs to add to
6 it, and I hope Senator Saland will develop a
7 bill and I hope you'll take some notes and maybe
8 these will be part of the next bill, is that
9 it's silent on the role of DFY to look at what
10 programs are there in building skills and
11 helping these kids stay out of trouble in the
12 future. What are we doing to make DFY more
13 productive and investing those programs that
14 work? Is there enough drug treatment? Is there
15 enough violence reduction programs? Are there
16 enough strong education programs? Are there
17 enough mental health programs in DFY? We need
18 to look at that.
19 If we're saying if someone gets
20 placed in DFY let's give up on them because they
21 made a mistake, we're making a mistake because
22 most of these kids will get to the street and
23 return to our communities. We need to help them
24 and in helping them, we help ourselves.
25 Also, one of my pet peeves -- and
902
1 this bill is silent -- we put all our resources
2 in the back end. I'm not going to talk about
3 what we should be doing in communities because
4 everyone knows we need quality health care. We
5 have to build stronger communities and churches
6 en masse and synagogues and hope children live
7 in communities where they can get decent
8 employment. I'm not even going back that far,
9 and prenatal care, et cetera.
10 Let's just look at the juvenile
11 criminal justice system where we're failing.
12 What happens to that young person when they make
13 their first mistake and they go to Family
14 Court? Family Court has no resources to deal
15 with that kid. That's when we should be tough.
16 That's where we should put the resources. Hold
17 kids accountable. Have programs there that
18 involve parents, involve schools, restitution,
19 community service programs. We do nothing when
20 a kid gets involved in Family Court because we
21 take all our money and put it in the back end of
22 the system and we say to that kid, you can get
23 five, six, seven bites of the apple. We're
24 going to wait 'til you commit the most heinous
25 crime and we're going to be forced to put you
903
1 away for a long period of time. We need to look
2 at early intervention programs when that kid
3 gets in trouble, when they're at risk in the
4 first instance. That's what we need to add to
5 this bill.
6 There are 12 counties now that
7 have a JISP program. Many judges -- and a JISP
8 program is the Juvenile Intensive Supervision
9 Program. If you ask the alternative to
10 incarceration community, if you ask the
11 probation commissioners around this state,
12 they're saying, why can't we have a JISP
13 program. The Family Court judges around the
14 state are saying, we want JISP. That's a
15 program that says they're going to supervise
16 juveniles, juvenile delinquents and case loads
17 of 15 to 1. We're going to do what we can
18 because Family Court wants this intervention but
19 there's no money in the localities to replicate
20 this program. So a lot of kids are going to DFY
21 for short stays, not getting the interventions
22 they need. We're spending $80,000 a year. JISP
23 makes sense because it teaches kids, gives them
24 some skills, gives them self-esteem, holds their
25 parents accountable, involves the schools, yet
904
1 we're not putting money into JISP. JISP costs
2 about $4,000 a year in New York City. Case
3 loads are 15 to 1. The judges love it. They
4 have 100 people a year. Where's the money to
5 invest in these programs? 12 counties have it.
6 Shame on us. Why don't all 62 counties of this
7 state have the opportunity for a Juvenile
8 Intensive Supervision Program? This bill is
9 silent on that.
10 Aftercare. If you ask John
11 Johnson what he needs the most, he needs money
12 for aftercare. Studies have shown, you send a
13 kid -- it's like sending someone out of
14 Corrections. If they're placed and they do some
15 time and they get back on the street, they go
16 back to the same dysfunctional life unless there
17 are supports in that community and aftercare
18 provides those supports. Study after study
19 shows that kids that have aftercare services are
20 less likely to recidivate and if they do
21 recidivate, recidivate for less serious crimes.
22 What are we doing with an aftercare component?
23 This bill is silent.
24 Again, we talk about finding
25 money for the back end of the system. Again,
905
1 probation reimbursement this year is cut from 32
2 percent to 25 percent.
3 I remember talking to
4 probationers, young people on probation and
5 asking them, why are you now staying out of
6 trouble? Why are you willing to become
7 productive citizens, stay in school, get off
8 drugs, learn that you can do something with your
9 lives, and they said because there was someone
10 in that community, whether it was a parent, a
11 teacher, a religious advisor, a probation
12 officer, someone who taught them to believe in
13 themselves and taught them how to do better for
14 themselves. We need to build that system early
15 on in Family Court, providing help and resources
16 to probation, not at case loads of 200 to 1 or
17 100 to 1 or 150 to 1.
18 Do you know that there are 190 -
19 maybe it's 180,000 people on probation out in
20 our communities? We talk about the 70,000
21 people incarcerated, but if we want to talk
22 about public safety and helping kids do better
23 so we are, therefore, safer, why aren't we
24 investing in probation statewide? That's why I
25 say it's pure rhetoric until we begin to invest
906
1 in probation.
2 Every budget year I see more
3 money going to prisons and I see less money
4 going into probation, and we have to fight every
5 year to restore those crumbs to probation.
6 That's the difference between public safety, is
7 when you invest not just in police but you need
8 to invest in probation.
9 Drug treatment. Every budget
10 year we cut drug treatment. Maybe we, after a
11 long fight, restore it. Again this year $4
12 million is cut from drug treatment.
13 So we need to strengthen our
14 response at the back end and a lot -- this bill
15 covers that, but we need to talk about the front
16 end, strengthening communities, strengthening
17 Family Court, strengthening community
18 corrections.
19 Police chiefs around the country,
20 similar to the Rand study, have been surveyed
21 and they said if we're going to deal with
22 reducing crime in the future, we must talk about
23 punishment but we must also talk about treatment
24 and prevention. So the people who know crime
25 the most who are on our front lines day in and
907
1 day out say we're not doing enough for treatment
2 and prevention. This state and this Legislature
3 cannot take a halfhearted approach to an issue
4 that affects so many people and so many lives
5 and it's one of the issues that really taints
6 everyone's existence. We need to take a
7 wholehearted comprehensive approach.
8 Senator Saland, I'm looking to
9 you and others in this chamber for leadership so
10 we can put a second bill that addresses some of
11 the issues we've all talked about so we can take
12 a comprehensive approach to crime fighting, and
13 the last thing that I would like to say, yes, we
14 can place and incarcerate every child at risk,
15 but if we don't do the things around treatment
16 and prevention, for every child that gets
17 placed, there's two or three other in our
18 community ready, willing and able to take
19 another bed, ready, willing and able not to
20 graduate on to higher levels of education but to
21 graduate on to higher levels of detention and
22 incarceration.
23 Let's be smart. Let's be tough
24 and let's take a full view to crime fighting.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
908
1 Senator Gold.
2 SENATOR GOLD: Thank you, Mr.
3 President.
4 Mr. President, some things work,
5 I believe, and some things are rhetoric, and I
6 support the concepts of my Minority Leader and
7 I'm not going to go into that too much, but one
8 of the items that is in this bill which I think
9 works is addressing youthful offender treatment,
10 and I want to congratulate Senator Saland over
11 his colleagues because, while some of you are
12 still not on board, it only took Senator Saland
13 19 years to catch up with me, and this is my
14 press release from January 1977, urging that we
15 change the way youthful offender treatment is
16 given because I believe that if we do change
17 that, if word gets around the street that you do
18 not get youthful offender treatment and then
19 that's wiped out but that those people who
20 deserve it can get it but those people who have
21 made their minds up they're going to live a life
22 of crime will not get that advantage and we will
23 start treating the second crime like a real
24 second crime. I think that has deterrent effect
25 when I think that kind of word gets around.
909
1 So, Senator Saland, I'm delighted
2 that that's included since the likelihood of
3 your colleagues putting out my bill will not
4 come out too much.
5 Now, having made that point which
6 is very significant, the next point I would like
7 to make is that I'll stop for a minute while
8 Senator Trunzo votes. Is that okay?
9 SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you,
10 Senator Gold.
11 Mr. President, could you have the
12 last section read for the purposes of Senator
13 Trunzo voting.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
15 Secretary will read.
16 THE SECRETARY: Section 91. This
17 act shall take effect in 120 days.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
19 Call the roll.
20 (The Secretary called the roll.)
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
22 Senator Trunzo, how do you vote?
23 SENATOR TRUNZO: Yes.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
25 Senator Trunzo should be recorded aye. We'll
910
1 record the vote.
2 SENATOR GOLD: Thank you.
3 Senator Saland, I only spoke a
4 minute or so. I got your vote right away.
5 Doing good. Doing good. I just want to make a
6 point, though, about -- Senator Connor made what
7 I thought was an astonishing point when he said
8 that 80 percent of this problem is in seven
9 Assembly Districts, and so I started to think to
10 myself if I were from upstate New York, would I
11 want to go and tell my constituents that they
12 ought to spend a large amount of money -
13 because, Senator, this bill is going to cost a
14 large amount of money in prison space and in
15 care. How do I say to them that they should
16 spend a lot of money to make sure that people,
17 for example, in Harlem don't get victimized by
18 some other people who live in Harlem because, as
19 I understand it, most crime is local and people
20 commit crimes in the areas that they live, and
21 here you would go around the state in upstate
22 New York and say your pocketbook has to be
23 emptied out in order for us to protect these
24 poor minority people in areas of Brooklyn, in
25 areas of New York; but you start to understand
911
1 what this bill is.
2 This bill is a jobs bill. That's
3 what it is. This bill is going to cost money,
4 but the theory of this bill is that the money
5 will be spent in upstate New York where we can
6 build jails and have jobs rather than spend that
7 money in the city of New York or other places
8 where we could be doing prevention, and the
9 proof of the pudding is the testimony of the
10 head of Division for Youth at our budget
11 hearings, and Senator Stafford was there and
12 many of the members of this house were at the
13 hearing, and we were told that it's costing
14 $80,000 a year -- that's not my number -
15 $80,000 a year for the Division for Youth to
16 take care of and house someone who has gone
17 astray and someone who is in their charge, and I
18 assume that $80,000 is being spent where the
19 facility is and a lot of this is in upstate New
20 York.
21 I'm suggesting to you that the
22 proposals that were made by Senator Connor, the
23 suggestion, the overall philosophy does not cost
24 money more than this bill, and I know there's a
25 cry out there. It's a popular political cry.
912
1 Take a problem, give it to a liberal, they'll
2 throw money at it.
3 Well, our proposals are not
4 throwing new money. What we're suggesting is
5 instead of spending your money on the jails
6 where you're spending, according to your
7 Division for Youth head, $80,000 per person per
8 year, that you spend that money to see that it
9 never gets there because, as I've indicated -
10 if you make a motion in the courts, a clerk
11 touches the paper, another clerk touches the
12 paper. If a crime is committed, it is expensive
13 not only to the victim; it's expensive to the
14 entire system and the constituencies throughout
15 the state, through their tax dollars, are
16 supporting that system even though you may not
17 be the direct victim that day.
18 So, Senator Saland, as one of
19 your admirers, I'm glad the bill is out. I'm
20 glad it has the youthful offender piece. If it
21 doesn't pass, I'll give you the bill number I've
22 got in. There are a lot of other things in this
23 bill which really open up a good debate on an
24 issue that we should be discussing and with that
25 in mind, let's just put it where it's at.
913
1 This bill is really a budget
2 bill, in my opinion, that suggests a method of
3 spending money to take care of a huge problem.
4 As long as you're going to talk about spending
5 that money, I think the proposals by Senator
6 Connor and Senator Abate and others deserve
7 similar consideration.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
9 Read the last section.
10 THE SECRETARY: Section 91. This
11 act shall take effect in 120 days.
12 SENATOR PATERSON: Slow roll
13 call.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
15 Slow roll call. Do we have five Senators
16 standing?
17 The Secretary will call the roll
18 slowly.
19 THE SECRETARY: Senator Abate.
20 SENATOR ABATE: Yes.
21 THE SECRETARY: Senator Alesi.
22 SENATOR ALESI: Yes.
23 THE SECRETARY: Senator Breslin.
24 SENATOR BRESLIN: Yes.
25 THE SECRETARY: Senator Bruno.
914
1 (There was no response.)
2 Senator Connor.
3 (There was no response.)
4 Senator Cook.
5 SENATOR COOK: Yes.
6 THE SECRETARY: Senator
7 DeFrancisco.
8 SENATOR DeFRANCISCO: Yes.
9 THE SECRETARY: Senator
10 Dollinger.
11 SENATOR DOLLINGER: To explain my
12 vote, Mr. President.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
14 Senator Dollinger, to explain his vote.
15 SENATOR DOLLINGER: Mr.
16 President, I'll be brief. I'm going to vote yes
17 on this bill, but I'm exceptionally cognizant of
18 the comments of my colleagues who have said that
19 juveniles in this state can rightfully look at
20 us with some skepticism when all they hear us
21 say is we're going to punish you, punish you,
22 punish you, but we're not going to give them the
23 support necessary to make the transition from a
24 child to an adult, and it seems to me -- I hope
25 that the debate will now shift if this passes
915
1 and some day becomes law to look to a point
2 where we'll actually take our children,
3 recognize them as our investment in the future
4 and make the investment to stabilize their lives
5 so that the temptation of crime will not exist.
6 Thank you, Mr. President.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: He
8 voted aye.
9 THE SECRETARY: Senator Farley.
10 (There was no response.)
11 Senator Gentile.
12 SENATOR GENTILE: Yes.
13 THE SECRETARY: Senator Gold.
14 SENATOR GOLD: Yes.
15 THE SECRETARY: Senator Gonzalez,
16 excused.
17 Senator Goodman.
18 (There was no response.)
19 Senator Hannon, excused.
20 Senator Hoffmann.
21 SENATOR HOFFMANN: Aye.
22 THE SECRETARY: Senator Holland.
23 SENATOR HOLLAND: Yes.
24 THE SECRETARY: Senator Johnson.
25 SENATOR JOHNSON: Aye.
916
1 THE SECRETARY: Senator Kruger.
2 SENATOR KRUGER: Yes.
3 THE SECRETARY: Senator Kuhl.
4 (There was no response.)
5 Senator Lachman.
6 SENATOR LACHMAN: Yes.
7 THE SECRETARY: Senator Lack.
8 SENATOR LACK: Aye.
9 THE SECRETARY: Senator Larkin.
10 SENATOR LARKIN: Aye.
11 THE SECRETARY: Senator LaValle.
12 SENATOR LAVALLE: Aye.
13 THE SECRETARY: Senator Leibell.
14 SENATOR LEIBELL: Aye.
15 THE SECRETARY: Senator Leichter.
16 (There was no response.)
17 Senator Levy.
18 SENATOR LEVY: Aye.
19 THE SECRETARY: Senator Libous.
20 SENATOR LIBOUS: Aye.
21 THE SECRETARY: Senator Maltese.
22 (There was no response.)
23 Senator Marcellino.
24 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Aye.
25 THE SECRETARY: Senator Marchi.
917
1 (There was no response.)
2 Senator Markowitz voting in the
3 negative earlier today.
4 Senator Maziarz.
5 SENATOR MAZIARZ: Yes.
6 THE SECRETARY: Senator Meier.
7 SENATOR MEIER: Aye.
8 THE SECRETARY: Senator Mendez,
9 excused.
10 Senator Montgomery.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
12 Senator Montgomery, to explain her vote.
13 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, Mr.
14 President. I would like to explain my vote. I
15 have an article from the New York Times, Mr.
16 President, from Monday, February 4, and it talks
17 about police -- former police officers who
18 retire and then decide that they're going to
19 become teachers in the public education system
20 in New York City, and there's a couple of
21 paragraphs that I would like to read that
22 describes an experience of a particular police
23 officer, which I think is quite revealing.
24 It says "A couple of months ago
25 Mr. Giles" -- and I'm probably mispronouncing
918
1 his name -- "said an 18-year-old student who had
2 recently missed a lot of school began screaming
3 at another teenager and then started fighting
4 with a dean. The teacher started talking to him
5 steadily but softly. His years of scrutinizing
6 witnesses and suspects told him there was a way
7 to get behind the boy's anger. I said, 'Where
8 have you been', Mr. Giles said. 'I kept asking
9 questions and suddenly I heard the crack in his
10 voice. He broke down and started to cry. He
11 had been thrown out of his house'", end of
12 quote, from the article.
13 I think that -- I am very, very
14 pleased with the eloquence of the way that my
15 colleague, Senator Abate, has explained the
16 issue, particularly as it relates to the
17 implications of changes in the system that we do
18 need to make.
19 I want to point out to my
20 colleagues that in the last -- this last week -
21 or I believe it was perhaps on Monday we had
22 before us three bills which I call weapons
23 proliferation bills. I believe they all passed
24 this Legislature and hopefully they won't pass
25 the Assembly, but they did pass in this house.
919
1 We know that we have a 50 percent
2 reduction in spending for the Board of Education
3 for at-risk youth funding. We do not have in
4 our high schools funding that allows the school
5 to offer crisis intervention for young people
6 who are in trouble. We do not have in our
7 communities facilities such as community justice
8 centers and community courts which I have had
9 teenagers ask me for because they have a need to
10 have some immediate attention paid to certain
11 issues that they run into as young people.
12 I have in certain parts of my
13 district an over 70 percent youth unemployment
14 rate. We do not have early intervention
15 programs that are in place as a permanent part
16 of our system to address the issues related to
17 what young people -- the problems that young
18 people get into.
19 About 20 years ago there was a
20 study of California youth which showed a direct
21 correlation between young people in foster care
22 and people who end up incarcerated in their
23 state prisons.
24 I have in front of me from our
25 Commissioner of Corrections where most of the
920
1 prisoners, the inmates come from in the state of
2 New York and 68 percent of them come from New
3 York City, and we know that this state has not
4 invested 68 percent of funding as it relates to
5 the criminal justice system to address those
6 districts where these people are coming from.
7 So I am voting against this
8 legislation. I think that it sends a message
9 that we are very much ready to punish young
10 people, to increase the number of years that we
11 will incarcerate them for whatever they do,
12 including assaulting a police officer, and
13 that's a charge that every young African
14 American male that I have ever spoken to who's
15 ever been arrested has on their record, and
16 we're willing to incarcerate them longer and
17 longer periods of time for lesser and lesser
18 crimes and we're not willing to invest $2
19 million.
20 I need $5 million to upgrade a
21 YWCA in my district, Senator Saland, that I
22 would be happy to work with you to get money to
23 do that because it serves young people in my
24 district and there are a number of other
25 facilities, and I also need more than $2
921
1 million, for sure, in my own district to develop
2 a facility for young people so that they can
3 remain out of trouble.
4 So as long as we have that kind
5 of commitment that we will put millions and
6 millions -- we're talking about in 2002 -- 2002
7 -- it's right here from Mr. Shechtman himself
8 -- Commissioner Goord, in 2002 we will be
9 spending $2 billion a year on a system that
10 incarcerates people and we will -- and the
11 Governor is boasting about $2 million that he is
12 willing to put into facilities for young people.
13 So I cannot vote for this bill.
14 I think it is an abomination and certainly I
15 believe you are waiting for the young people
16 from my district to fill up those prisons, and I
17 vote no.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
19 Continue the roll call, please.
20 THE SECRETARY: Senator Nanula.
21 SENATOR NANULA: Mr. President,
22 to explain my vote.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
24 Senator Nanula, to explain his vote.
25 SENATOR NANULA: I'm going to be
922
1 voting for this measure today because, quite
2 frankly, I feel unfortunately in many of these
3 instances it's too late. It's too late to save
4 a young person who has turned to violent crime
5 or other types of crime of the nature that this
6 bill is addressing, but I think it's important
7 as a body. I think it's important as a
8 government, as a Legislature that we look at the
9 reasons why and that we don't just dismiss this
10 as a solution.
11 This is not the solution. Things
12 that have been discussed today, my colleague,
13 Senator Abate and others, the types of things
14 that were brought up during this debate, in my
15 opinion, are incumbent upon us to spend more
16 time and more energy, and if we can develop the
17 kind of sensitivity to searching for the reasons
18 why young people are turning to this kind of
19 violent crime, as much as we have been sensitive
20 to this bill and looking at ways in which we can
21 further incarcerate them, hopefully together we
22 can find some solutions so that these tougher
23 penalties won't have to be implemented moving
24 forward into the future.
25 Thank you.
923
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
2 Continue the roll call, please.
3 THE SECRETARY: Senator Nozzolio.
4 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Aye.
5 THE SECRETARY: Senator Onorato.
6 SENATOR ONORATO: Aye.
7 THE SECRETARY: Senator
8 Oppenheimer.
9 SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: Explain my
10 vote.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
12 Senator Oppenheimer, to explain her vote.
13 SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: I agree
14 with some of my colleagues here. I'm going to
15 be voting for the bill but, as I have often
16 said, if we could intervene in the lives of
17 these children when they are young, very young,
18 with programs like Pre-K where we can take
19 advantage of their youth, see that they get in a
20 better track than they are starting off on, if
21 we could offer more in prevention, in education,
22 I think we could see a turn-about in the
23 statistics that we are now looking at, but in
24 recognition that the problem is there and these
25 children are now in their teens and late teens,
924
1 I feel I have to support the bill, but I think
2 there is so much more that can be done and
3 should be done in society that has the wealth to
4 do the right job.
5 I'll be voting yes.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
7 Continue the roll call, please.
8 THE SECRETARY: Senator Padavan.
9 SENATOR PADAVAN: Yes.
10 THE SECRETARY: Senator Paterson.
11 SENATOR PATERSON: No.
12 THE SECRETARY: Senator Present.
13 SENATOR PRESENT: Aye.
14 THE SECRETARY: Senator Rath.
15 SENATOR RATH: Aye.
16 THE SECRETARY: Senator Rosado.
17 SENATOR ROSADO: Aye.
18 THE SECRETARY: Senator Saland.
19 SENATOR SALAND: Aye.
20 THE SECRETARY: Senator Sampson.
21 SENATOR SAMPSON: Explain my
22 vote.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
24 Senator Sampson, to explain his vote.
25 SENATOR SAMPSON: I believe, my
925
1 colleagues, that we should be tough on
2 juveniles, but I think this is a bad bill. I
3 think it just concentrates on the issue of
4 punishing, not about early intervention or not
5 about prevention.
6 As my colleague, Senator Gold,
7 said, this is basically a budget bill. It talks
8 about -- it's telling our children that we are
9 investing in prison systems, but we are not
10 willing to invest in their education.
11 I also believe that, as Senator
12 Saland said, the Governor's willing to put his
13 money where his mouth is, approaching 2.5
14 million -- $2.5 million in alternatives.
15 However, he's willing to build -- he's calling
16 for an additional $200 million increase to build
17 state-of-the-art prison facilities. What about
18 state-of-the- art education facilities? What
19 about helping our children to get wired to the
20 Internet? This is something that we're going in
21 the wrong direction on this and, don't worry,
22 come the year 2000 we will be spending a lot
23 more money than what we are willing to spend
24 today, especially for early intervention and
25 education.
926
1 Thank you. I vote no.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
3 Continue the roll call, please.
4 THE SECRETARY: Senator Santiago.
5 SENATOR SANTIAGO: Yes.
6 THE SECRETARY: Senator Seabrook.
7 SENATOR SEABROOK: To explain my
8 vote.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
10 Senator Seabrook, to explain his vote.
11 SENATOR SEABROOK: I think that
12 it is very interesting here that we're now
13 looking at the adults just losing their minds,
14 and I say that because in this bill it is
15 interesting that there was a purpose and a
16 reason why we had different rules for children
17 and while we call them children and why we call
18 people adults.
19 I think that this bill is unfair
20 and the kids are really going to see just how
21 insane we are because this bill refers to
22 children. Read the bill. It constantly talks
23 about the child and children, and all the kids
24 are asking for is to be fair.
25 If you want them tried as adults,
927
1 then be fair. Let them have a jury trial as you
2 have adults have jury trials. Be fair. Let
3 them be able to maneuver the system as adults.
4 The one thing we as adults have
5 done in this state is never treated them as
6 children. So we have allowed them to just be
7 adults because we've never provided them with
8 anything that would allow them to be children.
9 We've decided to spend more money on the back
10 end of the problem than the front end of the
11 problem and we spent more monies on
12 incarcerating children than we do adults.
13 If we're going to talk about
14 providing a sense of punishment equally across
15 the board, then we should treat everybody
16 fairly, but we're asking the kids to do more
17 than we allow ourselves as adults. We're
18 supposed to be the responsible ones and we're
19 saying, I want you now to be a grown-up at the
20 age of 12. I don't even want you to even think
21 about being a kid because we spend $82,000 to
22 incarcerate you and we spend less than $8200 to
23 educate you. Don't be a child.
24 So we should say it in the bill.
25 In the bill, it specifically constantly talks
928
1 about the child and we have yet to treat them as
2 the child. Obviously there was a reason to
3 create a court that deals with children and a
4 court that deals with adults.
5 Now, it might be a good, sound
6 publicity hit to say that we're going to be
7 tough on these kids, but if we made it equal and
8 kids messed up and they went to jail, fine, but
9 be fair to them. Give them a shot at the
10 criminal justice system like we give every
11 adult, but we haven't been fair. Treat them as
12 children. Provide them with day care. Then
13 when they screw up, provide them an early
14 childhood education. Just let them be a kid.
15 Let them grow up and if they screw up, there's a
16 reason why we said they are children and we keep
17 referring to it in the bill, "the child", "the
18 child", but now we want to treat them as
19 adults. We should say to those young adults,
20 stop calling them children in the bill. Stop
21 calling them "the child" in the bill, and I
22 think that that would be the issue.
23 So let's go across the board.
24 Everything that you provide an adult when he
25 goes to jail, provide it to the children and
929
1 then we will truly believe in that, and one
2 thing we must learn and understand is that we
3 will never, ever build out of this problem. We
4 thought we could do that in 1984 when there was
5 less than 30,000 people incarcerated in the
6 state of New York. You'll never build out of
7 this problem until we decide to tackle it in on
8 the basis that we believe in an educational
9 system that will produce productive individuals
10 in our society, that we will truly talk about
11 solving the problems of crime and juvenile
12 justice, but we have yet to do that when we sit
13 back and see that we give more monies to
14 programs that does nothing for children that
15 solve the problem for adults.
16 Adults can't get no tax breaks -
17 I mean, children can't get tax breaks in this
18 state but adults can get tax breaks. Businesses
19 get tax breaks. The kids don't get any break.
20 So I am saying that we have to be
21 fair and treat them as children. Every child
22 should be treated as a child first and we will
23 have juvenile delinquents on the back end.
24 There was a reason when people who had the
25 wisdom to say that there's a difference between
930
1 a child and an adult and it still stands, if
2 there is such a thing as a mother and a father.
3 So on this legislation, until we
4 begin to be fair and treat children as children
5 and adults should be more responsible and stop
6 acting like children, then I think that I would
7 be in support of this bill.
8 Unfortunately, this bill is
9 unfair to children, and I vote no.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
11 Continue the roll call.
12 THE SECRETARY: Senator Seward.
13 SENATOR SEWARD: Yes.
14 THE SECRETARY: Senator Skelos.
15 SENATOR SKELOS: Yes.
16 THE SECRETARY: Senator Smith.
17 SENATOR SMITH: No.
18 THE SECRETARY: Senator Spano.
19 SENATOR SPANO: Aye.
20 THE SECRETARY: Senator
21 Stachowski.
22 SENATOR STACHOWSKI: Aye.
23 THE SECRETARY: Senator Stafford.
24 (There was no response. )
25 THE SECRETARY: Senator Stavisky.
931
1 SENATOR STAVISKY: Mr. President,
2 there is a lack of consistency between what the
3 bill says and what the memo says. The bill was
4 introduced on February 6th, 1997 at the request
5 of the Governor. It's only a few days later and
6 the bill makes no recognition of what is con
7 tained in the memo.
8 I believe in having the
9 substantive committee make the first decision,
10 but the memo very clearly states that the
11 extended placement provisions may impose
12 additional costs on the Division for Youth and
13 the need for the dispositional service plan will
14 add to the case loads of local probation
15 departments.
16 So this is a budget implication,
17 but there is no budget implication from the
18 Senate Finance Committee. The Senate Finance
19 Committee should have had this bill after it
20 came out of the substantive committee and we
21 should see what the full fiscal implications of
22 the measure amount to.
23 Why wasn't that done? Why weren't
24 the members of the Finance Committee of this
25 chamber given the opportunity to fill in the
932
1 missing information as to what the implications
2 are? So you read the bill, no reference. You
3 read the memo, and there is an acknowledgement
4 that there is a major fiscal implication.
5 We are not leaving Albany
6 forever. We're going to be here for a
7 sufficient number of weeks, and I think that on
8 something which implies in the memo that there
9 are fiscal implications for the state and
10 localities, we should have the courtesy of
11 referring a measure such as this to the Senate
12 Finance Committee. I know the Governor has made
13 a request, but it doesn't mean that we have to
14 jump every time the Governor makes a request.
15 We should be prepared to know what we're voting
16 on, to know what the cost of what we're voting
17 on really is.
18 Nevertheless, with that omission
19 which is a serious one, I'm going to vote for
20 the bill, but I'm going to suggest that, in the
21 future, legislation having a price tag of this
22 sort and acknowledged as a price tag in the
23 memo, should go to the Senate Finance Committee
24 after the substantive committee has rendered its
25 verdict.
933
1 I vote aye.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
3 Continue the roll call.
4 THE SECRETARY: Senator Trunzo
5 voting in the affirmative earlier today.
6 Senator Tully.
7 SENATOR TULLY: Aye.
8 THE SECRETARY: Senator Velella.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
10 Thumbs up.
11 THE SECRETARY: Senator Volker.
12 SENATOR VOLKER: Aye.
13 THE SECRETARY: Senator Waldon.
14 SENATOR WALDON: To explain my
15 vote.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
17 Senator Waldon, to explain his vote.
18 SENATOR WALDON: Thank you, Mr.
19 President, and my colleagues.
20 Earlier, and I will paraphrase,
21 when I read from the Bible I read something
22 like, when I was a child I spake as a child, I
23 acted like a child, but now that I'm an adult I
24 have put away childish things, which means that
25 I will act as a responsible adult even though in
934
1 this chamber, in this great legislative chamber
2 imbued with the history and the challenges and
3 the accomplishments of the Senators who have
4 preceded us, who I hope thought better about
5 issues of such substantive importance than we
6 are today regarding this particular issue.
7 I see that this bill will be
8 passed in this house and so my voice is but a
9 lonely voice, but I am not intimidated by the
10 fact that I may be only one of a few voices
11 because I believe totally, absolutely and
12 unequivocally that I am right on this issue and
13 one day, if I live long enough or one day that
14 my son or my grandson lives long enough, they
15 will see that we did the righteous thing in this
16 place.
17 I would think that, if you have a
18 child, you must give that child not three
19 strikes and you're in or three strikes and
20 you're out. You must give that child a second
21 chance, but more importantly than the second
22 chance is the first chance, and so you address
23 the needs of the SURR schools, you address the
24 needs of the Assembly Districts which are
25 falling down on the heads of the children,
935
1 clutching them and suffocating them with too
2 much disparity and too much despair.
3 If you're going to be right and
4 righteous in this house, you will say to the
5 children, you have a God-given right to an
6 education, a meaningful education, and though
7 you are from a dysfunctional family, a single
8 parent head of household family, we the people
9 of the state will embrace you and love you and
10 ensure that you can one day be a productive
11 citizen because as the alternative, my
12 colleagues, my friends, is that if we don't do
13 that, then this child will come back and create
14 havoc for our lives, will ruin our
15 neighborhoods, will kill our parents, will kill
16 our children.
17 So what we do here with these
18 words that we throw around and bandy around so
19 easily because we're bright and intelligent and
20 sometimes do things sub rosa and subversively in
21 terms of addressing the issue which is to help
22 the children, help themselves to help us to have
23 a better society.
24 Let me leave you with the words
25 of someone far brighter than myself, far more
936
1 intelligent and incisive than myself, but I
2 think as the jargon of the street says, "on the
3 money". Her name was Hanna Arendt and she said,
4 and I close and I vote no, Mr. President: No
5 punishment has ever possessed enough power of
6 deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.
7 On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a
8 specific crime has appeared for the first time,
9 its recurrence is more likely than its initial
10 emergence could have been.
11 Thank you.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
13 Continue the roll call, please.
14 THE SECRETARY: Senator Wright.
15 SENATOR WRIGHT: Aye.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: May
17 we call the roll of absentees on the first
18 round?
19 THE SECRETARY: Senator Farley.
20 (There was no response. )
21 Senator Goodman.
22 (There was no response. )
23 Senator Kuhl.
24 (There was no response. )
25 Senator Leichter.
937
1 SENATOR LEICHTER: Mr.
2 President.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
4 Senator Leichter, do you wish to explain your
5 vote?
6 SENATOR LEICHTER: To explain my
7 vote. I think this bill gets an A+ on political
8 appeal. I think it gets an F for dealing with
9 the problem of juvenile violence and juvenile
10 crimes. I reject the thesis of this bill which
11 is to apply the lash. This is a punitive bill
12 and it's a bill by which this chamber, in a
13 sense, washes its hands of the problem.
14 I don't think it's the children
15 who have failed. I think it's the Legislature,
16 it's the Governor, it's the government which has
17 failed. We have families, unfortunately a large
18 number of them, that are dysfunctional. We have
19 neighborhoods that don't work. Much of that
20 problem is due to the failure on our part to
21 provide the programs, the support, the
22 services.
23 The idea that you're going to
24 take a child who comes from one of these
25 dysfunctional families in a neighborhood that
938
1 doesn't work and, just by the threat of greater
2 punishment, you're going to materially change
3 his or her behavior is, I think, just fool
4 hardy.
5 We may be able to go out with
6 this bill and brag that we've done something
7 about juvenile violence. We've done nothing
8 about juvenile violence. We've perpetrated the
9 continued threat to our society by a growing
10 number of violent people, many of them
11 juveniles.
12 Mr. President, I'm -- I'm very
13 sorry to see this sort of approach, and I'm very
14 sorry to see that we can in this respect avoid
15 our responsibility of really providing the sort
16 of services and programs that will keep young
17 people from becoming a threat to society, from
18 becoming asocial people.
19 I vote in the negative.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
21 Continue the roll call.
22 THE SECRETARY: Senator Maltese.
23 SENATOR MALTESE: Aye.
24 THE SECRETARY: Senator Marchi.
25 SENATOR MARCHI: Aye.
939
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
2 Announce the results, please.
3 THE SECRETARY: Ayes 47, nays 8.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: The
5 bill is passed.
6 Senator Skelos, that concludes
7 the reading of the controversial calendar.
8 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President, I
9 believe there's a privileged resolution at the
10 desk by Senator Bruno. I ask that the title be
11 read and that it would be adopted.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
13 Secretary will read.
14 THE SECRETARY: By Senator Bruno,
15 Legislative Resolution, commending the New York
16 Chiropractic Council upon the occasion of its
17 sponsorship of the Sixth Annual H.O.P.E. Day,
18 Help Other People Eat, February 14th, 1997.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
20 Question is on the resolution. All in favor
21 signify by saying aye.
22 (Response of "Aye.")
23 Opposed nay.
24 (There was no response. )
25 The resolution is adopted.
940
1 Senator Skelos.
2 SENATOR SKELOS: Is there any
3 housekeeping at the desk?
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO: May
5 we return to the reports of standing committees,
6 Senator Skelos. We have a report of the
7 Agriculture Committee. Secretary will read.
8 THE SECRETARY: Senator Kuhl, from
9 the Committee on Agriculture, offers up the
10 following bills:
11 Senate Print 545, by Senator
12 Kuhl, an act to amend the Agriculture and
13 Markets Law and the Vehicle and Traffic Law;
14 546, by Senator Kuhl, an act to
15 amend the Agriculture and Markets Law, in
16 relation to the producer referendum;
17 719, by Senator Cook, an act to
18 amend the Agriculture and Markets Law, in
19 relation to examination of horses.
20 All bills directly for third
21 reading.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
23 Without objection, all bills are to be directed
24 to third reading.
25 Earlier in the statement we
941
1 neglected to call for reports of select
2 committees and communications and reports from
3 state officers.
4 Senator Skelos.
5 SENATOR SKELOS: In behalf of
6 Senator Bruno, there being no further business,
7 I move we adjourn until Monday, February 24th,
8 at 3:00 p.m., intervening days being legislative
9 days, and may those intervening days be
10 enjoyable days.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MARCELLINO:
12 Thank you.
13 On motion, the Senate stands
14 adjourned until Monday, February 24th at 3:00
15 p.m., intervening days to be very enjoyable
16 legislative days. Senate is adjourned.
17 (Whereupon at 12:11 p.m., the
18 Senate adjourned. )
19
20
21
22
23
24
25