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Bronx DA explains planned Youth Justice Bureau
6:40:09
ยท
153 sec
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark provides a detailed explanation of the planned Youth Justice Bureau, outlining its structure, staffing needs, and purpose.
- Clark estimates needing about 10 DAs for the bureau
- She highlights inconsistencies in handling youth cases and different laws for various age groups
- The bureau will include specialized training on youth development, resource coordinators, and partnerships with mental health services
- Clark emphasizes the need to create this bureau due to limitations in the existing youth part of the court system
Darcel Clark
6:40:09
Alright.
6:40:09
And and the written submission is is a lot more but I'll summarize it.
6:40:13
We would need probably to have about 10 DAs if we could.
6:40:18
I I don't know if I'm gonna get there initially but I know that I have to establish this bureau now because it's been a lot of inconsistencies in the way we've been handling the youth that come through.
6:40:31
We have the youth part that's statutorily there now for the 16 and 17 year olds, but there are laws for juvenile offenders who are 13 to 15 and the laws are different for them than it is for the 16 and 17 year olds.
6:40:46
And the way that it's it's interpreted in the law, the 16 and 17 year olds right now getting more protection than the 13, 14, and 15 year olds because automatically I get to keep them if I want based on certain designated felonies.
6:41:02
But with the 16 and 17 year olds, I have to make my case in order to retain the case in that youth part.
6:41:08
Mostly everything goes to family court.
6:41:10
And, I never I don't have a real problem with raising age.
6:41:14
I have some issues with it.
6:41:16
So all the misdemeanors now go to to family court.
6:41:19
Don't deal with those anymore.
6:41:20
So the cases that I have for the youth are the most serious cases, and I had to prove to a judge that I should be able to retain those cases in that youth part.
6:41:31
And that means that that that those are cases where there may be some kind of sexual assault, something that has some serious physical injury, or they display a gun.
6:41:45
And a lot of times we retain most of the times we try to retain it, sometimes we don't.
6:41:51
But those that commit homicides and murders and things like that, we keep.
6:41:55
So when you're looking at how we're dealing with them, there's a lot of inconsistencies.
6:41:59
Now I wanna put in a central place where the DAs are trained about youth development, you know, brain development, all of those things.
6:42:07
So we're gonna have resource coordinators.
6:42:09
We have a a a doctor, a psychologist that knows this work, that is helping us build these things.
6:42:16
We have the Montefiore Hospital be part of that to give us the mental health services and counseling.
6:42:22
We we know we have clergy involved.
6:42:24
We're gonna have all of these specialized people there to assist the youth part because the youth part should already have that.
6:42:31
But when we talked about
Christopher Leon Johnson
6:42:32
No.
Althea Stevens
6:42:32
We know that's not the case.
Darcel Clark
6:42:33
Okay.
6:42:34
We talked alright.
6:42:34
So, you know, the youth part, they have their issues already.
6:42:37
They don't have enough.
Althea Stevens
6:42:38
Yeah.
Darcel Clark
6:42:38
So I'm building my own because I can't wait for them.
6:42:41
But I gotta Yeah.
Althea Stevens
6:42:42
Because that's that's one of things I've been talking with the advocates and providers about is just the discrepancies of the programs that's available in the youth part that's not in the family court, like, and it's just so different.