By Rick Karlin
Times Union
ALBANY, NY — Acknowledging an increased number of attacks on correctional officers, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday said an additional 103 guards will be hired and on the job in state prisons by the end of the year.
And while he said he believes that will make correctional facilities safer, the governor also wants to shrink the inmate population and is pushing for a measure that would keep those under 18 from being sent to state prisons.
Under the Raise the Age initiative, 16- and 17-year-olds convicted of felonies would go to a “hybrid” facility that is neither an adult prison nor a juvenile facility to which younger offenders are sent.
“It is too early to condemn a 16-year-old to a life without redemption,” Cuomo said at the Greene Correctional Facility in Coxsackie.
Cuomo toured the medium-security prison with union officials and met briefly with some young inmates, including Xavier Pirela, 17, of Troy.
Pirela, according to state records, assaulted and robbed a 28-year-old man of his cell phone and stole phones and other devices during a break-in.
He and two other 17-year-old inmates, Lowell Houston of Buffalo and Justin Joseph of Newburgh, said they had previously spent time in juvenile detention facilities.
Pirela said there were more programs at Greene, where he took a class in electrical work for seven or eight months.
“That was good. It taught me a lot,” he said.
They are among the approximately 90 inmates statewide who are under age 18 and incarcerated in state prisons for felonies.
Only New York and North Carolina continue to put such people in adult prisons, Cuomo noted, repeating a call by supporters of the Raise the Age movement.
Putting young offenders in a “hybrid” facility would avoid exposing them to older, more hardened convicts, with the idea that they could still turn their lives around. Under the current proposal such teens would go to family rather than criminal court and, if convicted, be sent to the hybrid facilities.
“So if you have a 16- or 17-year-old who made a mistake, or made a bad choice, or a bad act, try to give them a skill and education so you can actually improve their lives,’' the governor said.
The Democratic-controlled Assembly and Republican-led Senate are debating the bill.
As is often the case, the Democrats want a more liberal interpretation while Republicans are seeking a more conservative approach surrounding details of the proposal.
Cuomo is urging them to strike a compromise by the end of the legislative session, which is set for June 17.
“Even if the Senate and Assembly can’t agree on everything, they must agree to get the 16- and 17-year-olds out of state facilities and into discrete facilities where they are getting the services they need,’' said Cuomo. “Those are two of the issues we’re going to be working on.’'
As for the additional correction officers, who will go to prisons across the state, they were funded in this year’s budget, the governor said.
It’s a response to what Cuomo said is the changing nature of inmates.
With an aging populace and following the Rockefeller Drug Law reforms of the last decade, the state’s prison population, now about 53,000, has been shrinking. As a result, the most hardened and aggressive inmates remain. That combined with the rise of synthetic marijuana, which is relatively easy to smuggle into prisons despite safeguards, has made for a volatile mix, said the governor.
“The one thing that always works, in my opinion, is increase the staffing — more correction officers,” said Cuomo.