The WNY CPC needs your help!

Last month the State published a report that it intends to spend between $8 and $10M beginning this March 2015 – less than 3wks away - to renovate the 1st 2 floors of the Strozzi Bldg. at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center! The purpose is to prepare it for children/youth psychiatric patients. It appears they intend to again try to close the WNY Children’s Psychiatric Center and relocate those kids to the adult psychiatric facility in Buffalo – despite near unanimous opposition from the entire WNY Community: from the youths themselves and their families whose lives have been rescued by the specialized care at CPC, to the churches, community groups, the Mental Health Community – peers, professionals, agencies; the Area Labor Federation; every level of government – towns, the county, the entire WNY State Delegation, etc, etc. Nobody thinks this is a good idea – except perhaps the Governor (?) and his political appointees, including Commissioner Ann Sullivan at the State Office of Mental Health(OMH). What don’t they get? Severely emotionally-traumatized and needy children do not belong in an adult psychiatric facility!The WNY Children’s Psychiatric Center is the highest rated facility of its kind in the state, with one of the lowest readmission rates in the entire state. It provides a healing, nurturing environment that simply cannot be replicated at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center. It provides short-term, intensive therapy that helps and heals – and provides hope – that enables children and youth to become healthy and functional adults. They help entire families to heal.

Please help us stop this horrific plan. Please call Gov. Cuomo, toll free, at 1-877-255-9417, press #1 and leave your message. Tell him to leave the WNY Children’s Psychiatric Center alone. There is no medical and no therapeutic reason to move the children to the Buffalo Psychiatric Center. Children need specialized care and should not be moved to an adult facility.

Read this hypocracy!

Dear Fellow New Yorker,

New York is one of only two states in the nation that treats 16- and 17-year olds as adults. The other is North Carolina.

Today, young people are incarcerated with adults in local jails while awaiting trial, and then matriculated into the greater adult prison population if found guilty. Yet 96 percent of these teenagers are accused or convicted of non-violent offenses.

Find out about our plan to improve how the justice system treats youths.

Let me explain why this is so critical. Youth housed in adult facilities are: 

• Five times more likely to be sexually assaulted 
• Two times more likely to be injured by prison staff 
• Eight times more likely to commit suicide than their peers in juvenile facilities

New York should lead the way by guiding and growing these young people, not condemning them before they even reach adulthood. Our Raise the Age proposal will create fundamental change in lives and communities across the state – which is why we’re calling on you to help us fight for justice and urge your state legislators to pass the proposal this session.

Raising the age of criminal responsibility will reduce recidivism and costs to the state. Youth processed as adults have 26 percent higher likelihood of re-incarceration than their peers who are processed as juveniles – in other words, when we process minors as adults, they are more likely to commit more crime again in the future.

The State also spends more than $100 million annually to house young people in detention and placement whom are not accused of committing any crime. Other states address the needs of these youth more effectively and for less money through robust community-based services, many of which are included in our proposal.

Please click here to see how you can help Raise the Age.

I know we’ve been asking a lot of you over these last few weeks, but this is all part of making our State the best that it can possibly be. Together we will provide opportunity for all New Yorkers. Let’s make New York a national leader in effective youth justice policy.

Sincerely,

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo