Posted: May 9th, 2013 | by Yuval Sheer

On April 29th, students from the State University of New York at New Paltz organized an event to educate fellow students and the community about the necessity of changing New York’s practice of trying children as adults. The event included a panel discussion featuring Judge Corriero, James LeCain, Director of the college program at Brookwood Secure Center, Diana Metz, a SUNY New Paltz student whose sibling is involved in the system, and Hernan Carvente, a John Jay College student who was incarcerated as a teenager.

In a paper she wrote about the event, Kelly Durman, a student at SUNY New Paltz, succinctly summarized its message:

“With our policies of mass incarceration in the US, thousands of juveniles are locked up in the already overcrowded and over-burdened prison system. Their personal needs are not addressed because they will spend time in a facility that will not likely take their emotional needs into account. Many youth involved in the criminal justice system come from disadvantaged communities and dysfunctional families, and have experienced horrors we could never imagine. Figuring out a more suitable method to address the issues and needs of juveniles is necessary because spending time in a facility will set them back further in the ‘real world’.”

We would like to thank SUNY New Paltz students Kimberlee Mathe, Judy Ko, Erin Taylor, Allison Smalley, Abigail Maher, Inova Javier, Ashley Sanchez, and Katherine Nelson for organizing this event. We also extend our thanks to Professor Alexandra Cox of SUNY New Paltz for her continued advocacy efforts on behalf of court involved youth, and for providing us with an opportunity to contribute to this important dialogue.

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