By Bill Parry
When Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the milestone Raise the Age legislation into law in Harlem Monday night, raising the age of criminal responsibility to 18 years old, Kalief Browder’s older brother introduced him to the crowd.
Social justice advocate Akeem Browder recounted his little brother’s harrowing story of arrest at age 16 for stealing a backpack. While Kalief was never officially charged, he was sent to Rikers Island for three years, much of it in solitary confinement — all because his family couldn’t afford the $3,000 bail.
The Bronx teen was frequently beaten by guards and inmates and after Kalief was finally released he struggled with the trauma he endured while in jail, eventually committing suicide in 2015.
“This should never have happened to Kalief. Kalief was just a kid,” Akeem Browder said. “Kalief would never been housed in the adult facilities had this been taken care of, but now our children can be safe and not in an adult facility.”
The new law ensures young people in New York who commit non-violent crimes will no longer be held on Rikers Island. Instead they will be placed in juvenile detention centers. New York and North Carolina had been the only states to automatically prosecute 16- and 17-year-olds as adults.
“Your brother did not die in vain,” Cuomo said. “Your brother died to make a social change, and he has.”
The legislation was passed as part of the state budget and will be phased in over the next two years. Without age-appropriate facilities and programs, teenagers face a greater risk of being involved in a significant assault, becoming a victim of sexual violence and committing suicide. Juveniles who are confined to adult facilities are five times more likely that the general population to commit suicide.
“By raising the age of criminal responsibility, this legislation will reduce crime, recidivism and costs to the state, and help us deliver on the New York promise to advance social justice and affirm our core progressive values,” Cuomo said. “Providing young people with age-appropriate facilities and rehabilitation will restore hope and promise and help them turn their lives around to build a better future for themselves, their families and for our great state.”
Youth who are processed as adults have higher recidivism rates than those processed as juveniles since young people who are transferred to the adult criminal justice system are 34 percent more likely to be rearrested for violent and other crimes than youth retained in the youth justice system. It is estimated that raising the age of criminal responsibility will prevent between 1,500 and 2,400 crimes every five years.
City Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest), who chairs the Courts and Legal Services Committee, held hearings in November at which Akeem Browder testified that Kalief’s suicide had ruined his family, with his mother Venida dying “of a broken heart” in October.
“She let Kalief out that night to go to a birthday party and that was the first time my brother was allowed out,” he told the committee. “We were never a part of the streets, we weren’t allowed to run in the streets. She gave him an 11 o’clock curfew and that’s when he was stopped and that’s when this all began, so my mom blamed herself.”
After the legislation was signed, Lancman commended Cuomo for raising the age of criminal responsibility to 18 and making college free for families making up to $125,000 a year. During his own campaign on behalf of the Raise the Age legislation, Lancman often cited scientific proof that young people’s brains are still developing and they don’t fully understand the gravity of their actions.
“If our youth are our future, Gov. Cuomo has just taken a giant step forward to securing a better, fairer, smarter New York for generations to come,” Lancman said. “We will no longer be one of only two states to treat 16- and 17-year-old kids as adult criminals, wasting young lives and taxpayer resources in defiance of science, common sense and public safety. How fitting that at the same time we will now offer every young person of modest means the opportunity to go to college unburdened and undeterred by ruinous loans. This is a truly transformative moment for our state.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparr
