Mark Green's answers to questions
about children's issues
1. Child Welfare:
Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta has indicated
that he would like to continue as head of the Administration
for Children's Services -- but only if he has the
trust and support of the new mayor that he currently
enjoys. He views his cabinet-level access to the
mayor as crucial and argues that ACS must be given
permanent status under the city charter, separate
from HRA.
Q: Will you ask Scoppetta to stay on to head
ACS?
I have not committed to asking anyone, including
Commissioner Scoppetta, to stay or to leave. I am
pleased with some of the strides made at the Administration
of Children's Services; however, there is still
much that needs to be done in this area.
In 1998, I published a Child Welfare Scorecard
that detailed the problems with the City's child
welfare regulations. It documented the many complaints
that my Public Advocate's Office received at my
C-PLAN: Child Planning and Advocacy Now unit. I
found that a substantial percentage of child welfare
complaints dealt with voluntary foster care agencies;
that there was a placement crisis for adolescents;
and that there were inadequate preventive and family
reunification services.
Since my report, the number of children in foster
care has declined, evaluation and monitoring of
contract agencies has improved, training and salaries
of ACS staff have increased, and the agency is reworking
placement to make sure that children removed from
their parents are placed near their own school and
community.
Recently, I issued a follow-up report entitled
Children Still at Risk. The report agrees that dramatic
improvements have been made, but there is still
much to be done if we are to truly protect the children
of New York City. I found that the ACS was still
failing many adolescent children; that many foster
children didn't have adequate health care; and that
children in foster care were abused at twice the
rate of other city children.
As Mayor, I will continue the best of ACS' reforms.
But I would also undertake programs to reduce the
need for foster care; reduce the trauma for children
taken from their families by ensuring that they
are placed in safe, well-run foster homes; develop
aggressive initiatives to make sure that adolescents
leaving foster care don't end up in homeless shelters
or prison; and press the State Legislature to radically
revamp the Family Court system so that the court
becomes a place of justice for all.
Q: Do you support Intro 770, the city council
bill that would establish ACS as a permanent agency
under the city charter?
I support keeping the ACS as a separate agency.
As Mayor, I would strongly consider any legislation
to establish the ACS as a permanent agency under
the City Charter.
2. Child Care:
The city provides subsidized childcare for
roughly 100,000 low-income children. Many people
say a crisis in supply remains, even though there
has been a significant expansion of funding: there
are still 38,000 children on the city's waiting
list and 38,000 children in temporary, informal,
care subsidized by HRA's Office of Employment Services.
There are also tens of thousands of low-income children
in families that earn too much to qualify for childcare
subsidies and too little to pay for adequate childcare.
Q: Will your administration increase capacity
in regulated care and/or in informal care? Do you
envision changing the current configuration of slots
among the different types of care?
In 1994, I organized opposition to an Administration
plan in 1994 to close 10 daycare centers. City Hall
later rescinded the cut and the centers remained
open. My 1997 survey of 234 workfare participants
confirmed that New York parents face a worsening
childcare crisis particularly as more and more parents
move from welfare to workfare. The study found 2out
of 3 of their 400 children in unregulated day care,
where they may be endangered by lax supervision.
I called on the City to create 74,000 new regulated
day care slots to accommodate the 30,000 children
on waiting lists and the additional children who
needed care when their parents go to work.
Regulated care is certainly preferable to informal
day care centers. I will work to increase the number
of children who are in regulated day care, where
we can be more assured that they will be housed
in safe conditions with adequate supervision. As
Mayor, I will push the State to contribute its fair
share and Federal dollars to provide working families
with childcare. I also want to extend eligibility
for the City's Earned Income Tax Credit to families
working families to pay for critical necessities
like quality childcare.
3. Juvenile Justice:
As part of its campaign to improve the city's
quality of life, the Giuliani administration increased
the number of youth officers at each police precinct
and increased the number of juvenile reports issued
by police substantially Â- both for misdemeanors
and less serious offences. In 1993, police issued
29,100 juvenile reports. In 1997, the number was
104,000.
Q: What will become of the Giuliani administration's
quality of life policing practices, especially in
the area of juvenile crime?
We can never "go back" on crime in New York. Crime
has been halved over the last two administrations--an
extraordinary municipal achievement. I will continue
much of the quality of life policing that was instituted
during the last administration. But quality of life
policing doesn't have to synonymous with police
misconduct and distrust of police within minority
communities. By expanding community policing, responding
quickly to police misconduct, and building bridges
between officers and the neighborhood they patrol,
we can have the best of both worlds: Safe streets
and an abiding respect and trust between police
officers and minority communities.
Q: Will your administration reverse or continue
the administration's juvenile detention policies?
My program on juvenile crime is threefold: Prevention,
Intervention, and when necessary, Punishment. By
preventing juvenile crime through after school programs,
and intervening with troubled youth through family
intervention and drug treatment, we can reduce the
need for punishment. It is well known that juvenile
criminals often become life long criminals. Investments
in prevention and intervention today will come back
to us in the future in the form of safer streets
and smaller jails.
Our first priority should be preventing juvenile
crime. Right now, juveniles are assigned to various
units of government based on the offense committed
rather than their individual needs. I will cut the
bureaucracy and create a lean, focused agency with
a clear mandate. So it's time to say goodbye to
the Departments of Probation and juvenile Justice.
Under a Green Administration, we'll have a single
Office of Crime Prevention Initiatives (OCPI).
The OCPI will create one detention system for youths
to detain youth when necessary, but more importantly,
it will ensure that young offenders get the help
they need as early as possible. The OPCI--in tandem
with the ACS and the NYPD--will be a principle organizer
of a Juvenile Justice Coordinating Committee designed
to organize and implement a comprehensive response
to the issue of juvenile crime.
Perhaps the best part of the OPCI is that it won't
cost taxpayers a dime. In fact, it has the potential
to save millions of dollars by consolidating agencies.
We can invest those savings in programs like BEACON
schools and expanding the Family Rehabilitation
Program.
Juvenile crime peaks between the hours of 3 to
8 PM. The reason is obvious. Schools let out at
3 PM, and many kids don't have parents to go home
to at that hour. By providing activities for at-risk
juveniles we can dramatically reduce the incidence
of juvenile crime. I will expand on the BEACON schools
where, after school, kids can go to get help with
their homework, mentoring, or just to play basketball.
There are several other steps we can take to prevent
juvenile crime. Comprehensive family interventions
can have a great impact on the lives of young people.
Many troubled adolescents come from families with
major problems. If a child comes home each night
to a family with substance abuse problems or domestic
abuse problems, it won't matter what we do for the
child during the day. A recent Justice Department
study found that effective family intervention can
reduce recidivism up to 60% more effectively than
other programs.
The problems of many juveniles stem from substance
abuse. Drug use leads many juveniles down the road
towards even more serious problems. We should expand
drug treatment programs as an alternative to prison,
especially for first offenders. The recidivism rate
for defendants going through the Brooklyn Drug Court
is down to 11% -- just one-quarter of the rate for
similar offenders who go to jail instead of treatment.
4. Welfare Reform I:
Since April 1996 the number of welfare recipients
in New York City has fallen dramatically, from 1,022,000
to 512,031.
Q: In 1998, the Giuliani administration began
converting welfare offices into Job Centers, which
incorporate job readiness activities into the application
for welfare benefits. What will become of the Job
Centers under your administration and the policies
they enforce such as the fraud detection initiatives
and the penalties for non-compliance with program
components?
The City's transitional assistance programs should
help people leave the welfare rolls as quickly as
possible for real jobs, by providing training focused
on work, child care and job search assistance. The
focus must be on finding people real work not make-work
through workfare. The City's welfare program needs
to be re-designed along the lines of the Transitional
Jobs Program, passed by the Council but not implemented
by this administration. I don't support efforts
to reduce welfare rolls by making the system as
complex and punitive as possible with Job Centers,
or Income Maintenance Centers, that do not link
people to needed services, jobs and training but
are barriers to assistance.
5. Welfare Reform II:
On Dec. 31, 2001, tens of thousands of New
Yorkers will reach the five-year lifetime limit
on federal welfare benefits. There is not an agreement
on the number of people who will actually reach
the limit that day. Jason Turner estimates the number
to be 38,000 people; the Independent Budget Office,
using state figures, estimates it to be 100,000.
The program that will replace TANF for those recipients,
the state's Safety Net program, appears to require
an increased investment of city funds and a substantial
bureaucratic operation.
Q: Will you have a system for delivering tens
of thousands of new non-cash benefits in place on
December 31st?
Yes. The City must have an adequate system in place
to meet the needs of 39,000 New Yorkers who will
reach their lifetime limit. First, the State will
automatically enroll those who've reached the mandatory
time limit into the Safety Net program. I will aggressively
lobby the State to contribute its fair share of
funds to this program. The City began the transition
process and recently entered into a contract with
Citigroup to manage electronic benefit assistance
programs.
Q: Will you automatically enroll welfare leavers
in the Safety Net program or enact the Giuliani
administration's plan to encourage them to move
toward self-sufficiency by requiring them to reapply
for Safety Net benefits?
Yes. I believe that New York State acted appropriately
in creating the Safety Net Program to provide those
whose cash assistance ends with the equivalent level
of in-kind benefits. It is completely inappropriate
and wrong for the City now to create new obstacles
and hurdles for those reaching the time limit and
is entitled to the benefits of the Safety Net Program.
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2001: Children