Grace Cangemi said...
The same day that two alleged drug dealers were killed by three other alleged drug dealers around the corner from my house, I attended the “hearing” on closing the YDC. Perhaps I was in a less tolerant frame of mind than usual. Perhaps the time I spent as a victim’s advocate makes the plight of juvenile offenders less of a priority than the plight of the folks who have to live around them. Any which way, watching D’Amico and Mallett pretend to care about public comment and then read pre-written statements about the importance of the YDC made me a little sick.
D’Amico and company talk about cutting funding to Brookdale when closing the YDC can save as much as two million dollars a year. Moving a handful of juvenile offenders to a new facility in Middlesex County will mean an extra 20 minutes of travel time. Sorry if a few offenders and their “support system” have to be inconvenienced. The victims of their crimes don’t get free lawyers and social workers and case managers – they get nothing but the meager support that can be offered by a handful of not-for-profits that are holding bake sales and relying on volunteers to keep their doors open.
Tough decisions need to be made, but this isn’t one of them. Only the worst juvenile offenders are placed in the YDC. Overall, 6% of juvenile offenders are responsible for 66% of all violent juvenile crime. Some of these kids are one person crime sprees. And over 85% of their victims are from within their own communities. So while the ministers from Asbury Park are decrying closing the YDC, perhaps they should at least mention the toll these offenders take on their own neighborhoods. Where were they when it was time to tell D’Amico not to cut educational opportunities for kids in their communities who are working to get ahead?
Mallett is beholden to the unions who support the juvenile detention officers. D’Amico is tied in with them as well. Their position has nothing to do with what’s best for Monmouth County. They can listen to the ministers and pretend to care about this handful of offenders, but they’ve already lined their campaign coffers with union dollars. This is a purely political move on D’Amico’s part, as it is for his hand-puppet, Amy Mallett. McMorrow should realize that this is political cronyism at its worst and vote to close the YDC.
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I liked her comments much better when she wasn't so snarky. Now, it just seems like she's gearing up for a run at something.
The real question is why does either county have a juvenile detention center to begin with? Is this not age discrimination? How about we grant "youths" the same rights that we "adults" have (ie, the right to vote, for starters, the same driving privileges, to go a step further) and then hold "youths" accountable the same way we hold "adults" accountable for their actions. Let's be honest here, the "youths" being sent to juvenile detention centers aren't the ones who are shoplifting a pack of gum from the corner store or the ones who don't clean their bedrooms, it is the "youths" who are equally dangerous as their "adult" counter parts. Will these "youths" have problems getting by in the same prison as "adults"? Probably, but if a jury of their peers (and yes, I mean that, I see no reason why we can't get some youths to spend a day on the jury) and a judge find such a sentence to be reasonable, so be it. Good luck so long see ya.
And PS - here is the link to the AP story about those PA Judges who were taking kickbacks to send kids to jail. Despite what I've been told, the system DOES NOT work and youth detention centers and treating youths as second class citizens is not part of the solution. To say their is some "outrage" among the National Youth Rights groups would be an understatement.
If we are to choose who gets screwed here, the college students attending Brookdale, or the 20-something kids whose parents have to drive the extra 20 minutes or so to the Middlesex facility, isn't this the biggest no brainer ever?
Close the blasted thing, and save $2 mil- period!.that's the no-brainer..if the Dem's can't show the intetinal fortitude to do what's right, all the better for this and next years' platforms, to get this county back!..
Close the damn place down! Contract to private correctional services or place the youths out of county.
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