State youth agency to consider changes
Director criticized for recent violence in group homes, including Lockport slaying
The head of the state agency supervising group homes for troubled teenagers, such as the one in Lockport where a counselor was killed last month, is announcing a work group to research possible policy changes.
But two Republican state senators blasted the Office of Children and Family Services on Wednesday, charging that the policies of Commissioner Gladys Carrion paved the way for increased violence and disorder in the facilities.
In an article published today on The Buffalo News editorial page, Carrion said she is appointing a group to tour the approximately 69 boarding homes operated by private agencies licensed by the state.
The group will include not only state officials but workers at group homes and perhaps a former resident, according to Edward Borges, Carrion’s spokesman.
“We want policy recommendations. And we want them by the end of the summer,” Carrion wrote.
Sens. George D. Maziarz and Catharine M. Young have their own recommendations, which would be to reverse many of the changes Carrion implemented after taking office in January 2007.
“Commissioner Carrion is trying to shift the blame to the private agencies, when the burden falls squarely on her shoulders,” said Young, R-Olean. “Staff are getting the daylights beaten out of them, and all the children are [considered] victims and they have to be treated with kid gloves.”
“She’s fixing a system that was badly broken,” Borges responded.
Maziarz, whose district includes Lockport, where group home counselor Renee C. Greco was killed June 8, allegedly by two Rochester teenagers, said he heard warning signs in Carrion’s testimony at her 2007 Senate confirmation hearing.
“She stated she was going to de-emphasize secure residences for troubled teens and try to get them more into treatment programs,” said Maziarz, R-Newfane. “If they would go back to treatment in secure facilities, it wouldn’t be a very difficult answer.”
Borges said, “Commissioner Carrion has initiated a complete overhaul of the state’s long-neglected juvenile system, including implementing evidence-based best practices, which study after study have consistently found to better maintain public safety across this nation.”
Young charged, “These radical policies are resulting in people being hurt or killed.”
New York’s juvenile justice system under the administration of Republican Gov. George E. Pataki was criticized by Human Rights Watch, an organization that spends much of its time investigating dictatorships around the world.
“We have found OCFS to be among the most hostile juvenile justice agencies we have ever encountered,” the group reported in 2006.
Young and Maziarz said it’s now one of the most disorderly.
In February, a runaway from a privately run state-licensed facility shot a Rochester policeman in the back of the head. The officer lived.
Last August, a security guard at a residential center in Johnstown died of a stroke a month after a teenager bashed him over the head with a wooden club.
On May 31, a dozen youths rioted at Randolph Children’s Home in Cattaraugus County and had to be subdued by police using pepper spray.
In Amherst, police told The News last month they are averaging one call per day to a group home on Main Street.
Borges said, “The commissioner’s responsibility is for improving outcomes for children and maintaining public safety. This [Lockport] incident was a tragedy. It reinforces the commissioner’s commitment to reforming the system.”
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