ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo‘s plan to raise the age at which New York teens can be tried as adults received a lukewarm reaction from GOP lawmakers Thursday but won the support of a top prosecutor.
Senate Deputy GOP leader Thomas Libous (R-Binghamton) said in a radio interview he was open to Cuomo’s proposal but noted it was a sensitive issue for lawmakers because of the violent nature of some youth crimes.
“Some of the most heinous crimes are committed by kids who are 16 and 17,” Brooklyn Sen. Martin Golden, another Republican and a former New York City cop, told the Daily News.
Cuomo, in his State of the State address Wednesday, said New York was one of only two states that treat 16-year-olds as adults in criminal court. He called for a special commission to draft plans to increase the age, but did not say by how much.
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, head of the state District Attorneys Association, hailed Cuomo’s announcement.
“What we are doing by treating these kids as adults is putting them in a potential cycle of recidivism,” said Rice, who stressed the association has yet to take a position on the issue.
Nearly 50,000 16- and 17-year-olds are arrested each year and charged as adults, advocates said. Most are charged with minor offenses like shoplifting and pot possession.
Rice and other advocates said treating 16- and 17-year-olds as adults denies them the programs they need to turn their lives around.
“It’s a myth that prosecuting kids as adults promotes public safety,” said Gabrielle Horowitz-Prisco of the Correctional Association of New York.
