Cuomo To Issue Conditional Pardons For 10,000 Juvenile Offenders
ALBANY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) - Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday that he will issue conditional pardons for about 10,000 former juvenile offenders, who won't have to disclose convictions on employment, credit or other applications.
Offenders with misdemeanor and nonviolent felony convictions at age 16 or 17 will get pardons after a decade with no subsequent crimes, the New York Democrat said. The governor's office plans to do outreach, starting with those convicted in 2004, who will be invited to apply through a state website, and working backwards.
"This will impact a great number of young people who have been sentenced, served their time and are now law-abiding citizens," Jennifer March, Executive Director of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York, said.
The Raise the Age Campaign, like Cuomo, advocates raising the age of criminal responsibility in New York from 16 to 18 by law, saying youths charged and convicted as adults have higher rates of new offenses. The group praised Cuomo's unilateral decision Monday to grant pardons.
Beth Powers, Director of Youth Justice of the Children's Defense Fund, told WCBS 880's Ginny Kosola Cuomo's decision a "positive first step," but the age of responsibility still needs to be raised in New York.
"While this will address some consequences for some people, what it shows is that young people have a tremendous amount of collateral consequences from being treated as adults," Powers said.
Powers said juveniles who have an adult criminal record face difficulties with issues like getting a good job, furthering their education and finding housing later on in life.
Cuomo said that if you indicate on a job application that you've committed a crime, it's very hard to get a job. Eliminating criminal history questions from job applications would be going too far, because society and employers have a right to protect themselves, he said, adding there needs to be a balance.
"We spent all of these years believing that if we punished every offender enough without any relief in the future, every crime would disappear,'' Cuomo said. "What we ultimately did was give a life sentence of stigmatization to kids who made a mistake and drive more people towards crime, because society told them for the rest of their lives that that's what they were -- criminals.''
New York and North Carolina are the only two states that automatically prosecute 16- and 17-year-olds as adults.
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