By including the “Close to Home” initiative in his 2012 budget proposal, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has proposed major reforms to New York’s troubled juvenile justice system. The initiative, which will authorize New York City to keep all but its most serious offending youth here in the city, will improve both public safety and outcomes for the city’s young people who have run afoul of the law. Parents will be involved in their child’s rehabilitation and youth will earn school credit while in placement, which is the juvenile justice system’s term for confinement.
In December 2010, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg visited the Finger Lakes Residential Center with the Reverend Al Sharpton. Upon his return, Mr. Bloomberg summed up what he saw: “The facilities run by the State are relics of a bygone era, when troubled city kids were stripped from their families and shipped to detention centers in remote rural areas.”
