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Mayor Eric Adams made progress Wednesday in getting at least some members of the state Legislature to support his pro-safety agenda.
During his lengthy Zoom testimony on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $216 billion budget plan, Adams was pleasantly welcomed by state Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island/Brooklyn), who told him she was introducing legislation to tackle youth gun violence and addressing the mentally ill homeless who are a “danger to themselves and others.”
Savino told Adams she and Assemblyman Mike Cusick (D-Staten Island) proposed a bill to prosecute teens arrested on gun charges in criminal court instead of family court.
In 2017, the legislature approved a law that raised the age of criminal responsibility for juveniles from age 16 to 18 years of age for non-violent crimes.
But Adams complained that many 16 and 17 year-olds are now getting arrested for gun crimes and are being treated as juveniles instead of adults. He said older criminals are stashing guns with teens because they know they will be treated as juveniles and not get prosecuted as adults.
“So towards that end Assemblymember Cusick and I are introducing legislation to reform the Raise the Age [law] to address those gun charges that you eloquently pointed out don’t belong in Family Court,” Savino told the mayor.
The Savino-Cusick bill would require that 16 and-17-year-olds who are convicted of a violent felony crime while in possession or use of a firearm be prosecuted by the District Attorney in Criminal Court, not Family Court, and detained in a correctional facility.
The bill ensures that no 16 or 17 year old defendants have contact with incarcerated adults while in detention.
But Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) later told the mayor he opposed treating 16-and-17-year-olds as adults for gun charges.
“We should focus on the exploiters rather than putting [teens] through the criminal justice system,” Rivera said.
In addition, Savino said she’s working on strengthening the law to make it easier to get the chronically — and sometimes dangerous — mentally ill individuals off the streets, including the recent deranged Times Square subway pusher.
“We have to address the challenges that face our chronically mentally ill homeless population, who cycle in and out of our emergency room wind up in our subway tunnels, and it’s in chronic mental health crisis,” Savino said.
“We need to change the definition under mental health law of what is a person who is incapable of taking care of themselves in a danger to themselves or others.”
She also told the mayor lawmakers would deal with the shortfall in funding for mental health beds.
Source: NYPOST
