Gov undermines plan to move kids off Rikers: city

THE PLAN to move teenagers off of Rikers Island and other city jails is being “imperiled” by the Cuomo administration’s lack of financial and regulatory support, the city’s top criminal justice policy adviser said Tuesday.

After years of lobbying from inmate advocates, state lawmakers passed the Raise the Age measure last year. Under that legislation, the city is required to move teen detainees off of Rikers Island and other city jails by October 2018. But that appears unlikely. As part of the plan, de Blasio administration officials want to use the state-run Ella McQueen Center in Brooklyn (photo inset) as its intake for 16- and 17-year-olds before they are sent to other facilities in the city based on their age and crime.

But the state has balked at even letting city officials tour the spot, said Elizabeth Glazer, director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, in a letter to the state’s commissioners of correction and children and family services.

“The state has denied the city a site that is clearly not necessary for the state’s own use but would make a measurable difference in New York City’s ability to house all the young people in detention,” she wrote.

The Cuomo administration has also failed to adjust regulations to allow the teens to have their cases decided in the city’s juvenile justice system, Glazer said.

The de Blasio administration has set aside $55 million to update and expand a detention center in the Brownsville section of the Brooklyn and another in Mott Haven in the Bronx.

But the state has failed “to provide final regulations” to enable the city to operate those spots, according to Glazer’s letter.

A Cuomo administration official vehemently denied Glazer’s accusations.

“This letter is both a stunning misrepresentation of the state’s efforts to implement this landmark legislation and evidence of the city’s utter failure to prepare for Raise the Age,” said Monica Mahaffey, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Children and Family Services. The city, she added, has billions of surplus money.

City Councilman Rory Lancman, who heads the Justice System Committee, said it appears that the de Blasio administration is looking to blame the state for expected delays. “It sounds like the mayor is setting up a scenario to blame the state for the city’s failure to properly implement Raise the Age,” he said. “Raise the Age has been one of the holy grails of criminal justice reform for a number of years,” he added. “And now that we have this opportunity the city should be all hands on deck to make it happen.”