Teens stay put in city lockups
A legal decision on a labor dispute issued by a Queens judge on Monday will likely mean the city will miss its deadline to move dozens of troubled teens out of city jails and into a juvenile facility by the end of the month.
The city is required to transfer 16- and 17-year-old inmates to the Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx by Oct. 1 as part of the state’s Raise the Age legislation.
It planned to use some 300 correction officers to staff the Horizon Center, along with another 200 new employees hired by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.
But a trio of correction unions sued over an ACS requirement that their members — along with the new hires — fill out a questionnaire and sign paperwork they deemed invasive and overly restrictive.
The unions argued that the questionnaire could land their members on a potential child abuse registry list if they are involved in a use-of-force incident with the teens while patrolling the juvenile center.
Queens Supreme Court Judge Joseph Esposito agreed to issue a temporary restraining order on the questionnaire until a hearing on Oct. 1 — which the unions say will likely delay the “Raise the Age” timeline.
“We will appeal this in court, where we successfully fought a similar order this summer, and we will keep fighting the unions’ misguided attempts to deter us from meeting the deadline,” said mayoral spokeswoman Natalie Grybauskas.
The correction unions initially filed a suit in May arguing that their members aren’t trained to oversee and assist in providing therapy to young offenders.
Judge Esposito initially issued a temporary restraining order in that case. But he later ruled that the unions failed to demonstrate how the transfers would totally change the officers’ job duties.
This latest lawsuit by the unions is an amended version of that May case.
In a rare display of unity between correction unions and inmate advocates, the jail reform groups are also against deploying correction officers to the new youth facility in Mott Haven. They are worried that officers will be too quick to use force with teens who act out.