Shift from Incarceration Adds to Challenges for County Probation Agencies

The state's Raise the Age initiative -- which increased the age of criminal responsibility to 18 and was aimed at keeping young offenders out of adult prisons -- has resulted in more 16- and 17-year-old offenders being placed under the supervision of probation departments.

"We're now treating an older population of youths as adolescent offenders," Davidian noted. "And most of the time those cases are pretty serious. There are weapons cases and people who have been arrested for serious assaults. But we just don't have enough detention beds throughout the state."

Alan Frisbee, director of the Greene County Probation Department and president of the New York State Council of Probation Administrators, said state officials rushed ahead with implementing Raise the Age before state agencies had lined up sufficient housing for youths requiring secure placements.

"The state totally dropped the ball with this," Frisbee said from his county office in Catskill. "It's our belief the state just does not want to see people locked up, kids in particular.

Meanwhile, the state's strategy of reducing reliance on prisons to punish offenders while favoring an expansion of alternatives to incarceration has increased the number of convicted felons in the population of individuals under probation supervision.

Probation administrators say this has added to the stresses of those working in the field of probation.

A job once considered to be more oriented to social work has taken on additional law enforcement dimensions, with officers not infrequently finding themselves in potentially risky situations as they oversee individuals whose rap sheets can include violent felonies, domestic abuse, grand larceny and trafficking in dangerous narcotics.

"We've always seen serious cases but with the closing of state prisons and Raise the Age we're seeing a lot more," Davidian said. "While a lot of sex offenders do go to state prison, the reality is there are times when a county court judge would prefer to have a sex offender on probation, because this way you're watching the guy for 10 years on a felony sex offense and so the person is being watched for a longer period, and the thought process being that is safer for the community."

The state prison population has fallen from 72,649 incarcerated individuals in 1999 to 33,351 this summer. Meanwhile, the administration of Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced that two additional maximum security prisons -- Great Meadow and Sullivan -- are slated for closure in November.

But the added responsibilities imposed on probation departments has not been accompanied by any substantial increase in financial support from the state government. The recent cashless bail requirements in the criminal justice system has decreased county jail populations while resulting in more individuals getting pretrial services from probation.

Ryan Gregoire, the legislative director for the New York State Association of Counties, commented: "For over a decade now, probation departments have not seen any increase in their Aid to Localities appropriation. However, there have been a lot of changes in probation's role and responsibility in the community."

"Many probation departments are now providing pretrial services," Gregoire added.  "They are providing assistance with new kinds of courts, such as drug and other kinds of treatment courts. They are also responsible for all of the electronic monitoring and all of the monitoring of sex offenders and folks arrested for DWI.  They also do home visits with CPS (Child Protective Services.) A lot of that caseload crosses over between Probation and the Department of Social Services."