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MAY 2005

Bill Would Guarantee Education of Incarcerated Youth
By Assemblyman Steven Sanders

I am proud to be the prime sponsor of legislation, Assembly bill 6009, which would amend the State’s Education Law and the Executive Law to guarantee the provision of educational services to youth confined in detention facilities. The legislation would also ensure that appropriate special education services are provided to young people who are either incarcerated in local correctional facilities or confined in detention facilities.

The legislation would require that educational services for individuals confined in local juvenile detention facilities be furnished by the school district or the board of cooperative educational services (BOCES) serving the area in which the juvenile detention facility is located, except in the case of an institutional juvenile detention facility operated by the City of New York, where the City’s Department of Juvenile Justice would be responsible for the provision of such services.

The legislation specifies that all persons under 21 years of age who have not received a high school diploma and who are confined in juvenile detention facilities shall be provided educational services. Additionally, pupils placed in juvenile detention in a non-secure family boarding care (FBC) facility would be admitted to the schools of the district in which their home is located, and pupils placed in juvenile detention in a non-secure agency-operated boarding home (AOBH) facility or a non-secure group care (GC) facility would be provided educational services on the site of the juvenile detention facility by the school district in which the facility is located.

Under current law, while there are provisions and funding for the education of incarcerated youth in New York State, there are no provisions or funding for youth confined in juvenile detention facilities—an omission that would be corrected by enactment of this legislation. Though the average time a detained child spends in a juvenile detention facility is only a couple of weeks, many children spend as many as four to six months as they await a trial or other legal proceeding.

It is our constitutional obligation to provide these children with an adequate and appropriate education while they are detained, just as we do when a child has been suspended or incarcerated. Children and young people who have been in trouble or who have required special intervention, for whatever reason, cannot be denied education, not only because they are constitutionally entitled to an education, but because learning is pivotal to their emotional, psychological and intellectual maturity. How much cheaper it is to provide tailored and appropriate educational services than to neglect these young people and condemn them to lives without hope and without opportunity.#

Assemblyman Sanders is chairman of the Education Committee. E-mail him at sanders@assembly.state.ny.us or phone 212.979.9696. His mailing address is 201 East 16th Street, New York, NY 10003.

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