NY commission faults youth prison officials for party for violent offenders, female guests

Commission faults NY youth prison for party

ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York State Commission of Correction said Friday that top officials and staff were irresponsible when they authorized and failed to supervise a party at a youth prison where some violent offenders had sex with their dates.

The commission faulted the Office of Children and Family Services for authorizing the Goshen Secure Center in the Hudson Valley to hold the December party for four offenders as a reward for good behavior. They ranged in age from 17 to 20, three doing time for murder and one for armed robbery. Sex caught on video cameras appeared to include a lap dance between one couple and oral sex between another.

The commission said OCFS officials knew little about the four female guests, ranging from 16 to 27, who were driven from Albany and New York City by state workers in state vehicles. One guest had received $100 previously from one of the juveniles.

“Even assuming that there is an identifiable institutional or public benefit to holding such events in secure facilities of confinement, the Goshen Winter Social Dance was so mismanaged and mishandled from the start that the health and safety of the residents and guests, and the security of the facility, was severely compromised,” the commission said in its report. “In essence, the senior management of the Office of Children and Family Services and the line staff took what was a questionable practice and then poorly implemented and executed it.”

OCFS Commissioner Gladys Carrion said the agency took steps shortly after the incident, including an internal review, suspending social events, revising its visitor policy and starting disciplinary proceedings against seven staff members

“This event was orchestrated without any clear policy or procedural direction as to how it was to be organized, supervised and chaperoned, and without any appreciable security precautions or safeguards that would be the expected norm for contact social events involving violent offenders in a high-security institution,” the commission said. “In fact, there was far less planning, organization and precaution than one would expect at a conventional high school prom.”

The report noted that social events were conceived last year as an antidote to gang activity in two of the five secure facilities operated by OCFS — Goshen and the Brookwood Secure Center in Columbia County — and were initially held in July. Officials hoped that the events would “motivate youth behavior” and “help stabilize some of the gang activity as well,” according to an internal memo.

OCFS currently has 698 youths at 26 facilities statewide. The so-called youth prisons house offenders who came from family or adult courts for crimes when they were under 16.

Earlier this week, Gov. David Paterson announced a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department in an investigation at four facilities that found staff frequently restrained juveniles causing injury and provided insufficient mental health care.

Paterson said $18.2 million is budgeted this year to hire additional counselors and staff. The Lansing and Louis Gossett Jr. residential centers outside Ithaca and the Tryon residential centers for boys and girls in Johnstown will be subject to monitors.