New York’s soft-on-crime “Raise the Age” law has overwhelmed the Big Apple’s two understaffed juvenile facilities with older, hardened criminals — including accused killers, a scathing new report found.
The number of murder suspects held in residential centers designed for misbehaving youngsters has more than quadrupled since the state law passed in 2017 — sparking nearly a dozen outbreaks of violence that have sent staffers and inmates alike to the hospital, according to the city Department of Investigation.
The measure, and a bail reform package passed by the state legislature the following year, “have fundamentally altered the juvenile detention population,” and made additional approaches to discipline “insufficient to deter misconduct,” the 75-page DOI report released Thursday says.
The two youth facilities — Horizon Juvenile Center in The Bronx and Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn — saw their resident population skyrocket from 52 in April 2018 to 237 in May 2023, according to the report.
And the number of those facing murder charges spiked to more than 230 from just seven over the same time frame, investigators found.
Interviews with hundreds of current and former employees at the city’s Administration for Children’s Services – which oversees the two juvenile detention centers — revealed that staffers are overworked and have been forced to grapple with nearly a dozen outbreaks of shocking violence, including riots that have sent workers to the emergency room, the report said.
“These challenging circumstances call for ACS to strengthen its behavioral management tools to better track and respond to violent and criminal conduct,” DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber said in a statement.
The report sparked outrage from state and city politicians, as well as from police sources, who have also been forced to grapple with the effects of the controversial criminal justice reforms.
“It is all a shell game,” one Brooklyn detective griped. “In 2018, the people in juvenile facilities today would have been in Rikers. So, basically the facilities have become satellites for Rikers.”
One law enforcement source said that the law “has critically damaged the fabric of our city.”
“The reforms were based on ideology with minimal input from law enforcement professionals,” the source said. “The results are simple: Youth crime is surging along with youth victims. This along with bail reform has emboldened criminals, damaged our youth and made New York less safe.”
Albany’s Raise the Age initiative was part of the sweeping criminal justice reforms pushed through by the Democrat-majority state legislature that critics contend has led to a spike in crime in the Empire State.
The statue, which was implemented in two stages in 2017 and 2018, raised the age of criminal responsibility in the state to 18, and allowed for criminal defendants to remain in juvenile facilities as old as the age of 21.
Before, suspects as young as 16 could be automatically tried in adult criminal court.
On the heels of Raise the Age, state lawmakers also adopted measures that prohibited judges from setting bail on nearly all criminal cases, save for the most violent felonies. Despite several tweaks spearheaded by Gov. Kathy Hochul, most crimes remain ineligible for bail.
“We said all along that Raise the Age was going to be nothing more than a gang recruitment act,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), who, as a state Assemblywoman, voted against the law and bail reform.
“It reduced penalties, sealed records and eliminated consequences for teens who commit crimes,” she said. “Now we see a spike in crime and violent offenders being housed with juvenile delinquents.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-Hudson Valley), who pushed legislation in Congress to end cashless and has railed against Raise the Age, said that: “Democrats in Albany don’t have the slightest clue what they’re doing when it comes to keeping New Yorkers safe.
“Raise the Age and Cashless Bail have put New Yorkers at more risk of being harmed by violent repeat offenders and, based on an NYC DOI report, have even put staff in detention facilities in harm’s way,” he said.
At Horizon and Crossroads, the standard behavioral managed procedure known as STRIVE — Safety, Teamwork, Respect, Integrity, Values and Engagement — quickly proved inadequate to handle the older and more violent residents, according to the DOI report.
The already-understaffed youth facilities suddenly faced an influx of violent residents, forcing more and more to work overtime to fill slots or sub in for injured coworkers, investigators found.
The new realities led to several violent outbreaks, including on Sept. 8, 2022, when eight residents took over a multi-purpose room at Crossroads and assaulted staff members, the report said.
In another incident on Jan. 24, 2022, eight Horizon residents were arrested after rioting at the facility that included one suspect pulling out a shank and threatening staff. Sixteen staffers were involved in trying to quell the riot, but ultimately had to call in the NYPD.
On April 12, 2020, residents at Crossroads described in the report as “going bonkers” set off fire sprinklers and overpowered staffers, who were held at bay for three hours before cops were called.
Workers at both Crossroads and Horizons recovered razors, rocks, metal clubs, metal screws and “a sock that contained a makeshift shank,” as well as marijuana, during other incidents, the report said.
The DOI said it made 15 recommendations to ACS, six of which were rejected while nine were either accepted or had already been implemented by the youth care agency.
In an email Thursday, a spokesperson for ACS said the agency has addressed many of the issues cited — particularly since May 2023, the most recent statistics cited in the DOI report.
Between May 2023 and March of this year, the average daily population at the two facilities rose by 30%, but the rate of youth-on-youth violence dipped by 35%, the spokesperson said. Staffing has increased and the number of workers comp claims by employees plummeted.
A follow up monitor’s report found that through June of this year, ACS had made “important progress” at the youth sites, and that “facility safety and stability continued to benefit from the vision and approach of the current ACS facility leaders.”
“While serving older youth charged with more serious crimes poses additional challenges … ACS has achieved compelling reductions in the frequency of youth violence,” the agency said in a statement.
“Violence is down, supportive programming has significantly increased, restorative work with youth is making a difference, and we are seeing improved educational outcomes for youth in detention, including more high school graduations.”
Meanwhile, the New York City Council is jumping into the fray, passing legislation Wednesday to require more public data on outcomes and demographics of youth crime and the juvenile justice system.
“Our juvenile facilities are becoming training grounds for young criminals,” City Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) said Thursday. “When offenders are being sent to juvenile facilities they are surrounded almost exclusively by hardcore, dangerous offenders now.”
Former NYPD Assistant Commissioner of Youth Services Kevin O’Connor, who retired in January 2023, called on the city to build a separate facilities to hold older juvenile offenders, and do more to stop recidivism.
“They’re not even holding kids for robbery or gun possession,” he told The Post. “There’s literally no room at the inn.
“I don’t want to see kids go to jail but what do you do with a kid who’s been arrested 17 times in nine months? You need to detain him so he doesn’t keep victimizing,” O’Connor said.
— Additional reporting by Joe Marino and Larry Celona
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