How ‘Raise the age’ led to MORE kids with guns

On an August evening in 2021, 24-year-old Dandre Johnson was gunned down as he stood on a South Bronx street. Seventeen-year-old Tyree Malone was arrested and charged with the murder of Johnson.

Malone was no stranger to the criminal justice system or to guns.

According to reporting in The Post, Malone had at least three prior gun possession arrests within the previous year.

So why was this young and dangerous offender still on the streets?

Because that is the result the New York state Legislature wanted.

In 2017, with enthusiastic support from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Legislature passed the now infamous “Raise the Age” law that radically changed the scope of criminal and juvenile justice in New York.

Cuomo proudly announced, “At a time when President Trump and this federal government are taking us backward, New York is moving forward with bold criminal justice reform. By raising the age of criminal responsibility, New York is putting an end to an injustice that falls disproportionately on people of color and once again proving that we are the progressive beacon for the nation. In New York, we will never stop fighting for a more equal and more just society for all.”

Unfortunately, not for Dandre Johnson.

Prior to the passage of RTA, most juvenile crime cases were heard by the state’s Family Court as juvenile delinquency cases.

Youth aged 7-15 years were tried before Family Court judges in “quasi criminal” proceedings that do not, legally, result in criminal “convictions” but are deemed “adjudications” of delinquency.

During the spiking crime wave in the 1970s, state law was amended to allow certain serious crimes like murder, rape, serious assaults and armed robbery to be handled in the criminal courts for 14- and 15-year-olds.

Those youth, designated “Juvenile Offenders,” are deemed criminally responsible and could be sentenced to incarceration in secure facilities specifically designed for teens.

Meanwhile, 16- and 17-year-old offenders were subject to the jurisdiction of the criminal courts for all crimes.

Child advocacy groups and progressive politicians have long been lobbying to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18 years and send all youth to the Family Court.

These advocates argued that adolescent brains had not yet fully developed and, therefore, young offenders should not be held criminally responsible for most crimes.

They further averred that only one other state besides New York treated 16- and 17-year-olds as criminal defendants.

The RTA law creates a new category of juvenile criminal, as well as a new court part: 16- and 17-year-olds arrested for felony offenses are now brought before a “Youth Part” in the criminal court as “Adolescent Offenders.”

This appearance before the special Youth Part is brief because the law presumes a prompt removal of the case to the Family Court for processing as a juvenile delinquent. Unless the prosecutor can demonstrate that the defendant caused (1) significant physical injury, (2) displayed a gun or deadly weapon (but not just possession), (3) committed an illegal sexual act, or provides the Court with “extraordinary circumstances,” the case — and the adolescent offender — are moved to the Family Court.

But the new legislation provides no definitions for “extraordinary circumstances,” or “significant physical injury,” so prosecutors and judges have no way of knowing the standard for keeping a young felon in the criminal courts.

What is conspicuously absent from these conditions is any consideration for community safety.

In the fatal shooting of Dandre Johnson, the 17-year-old defendant was alleged to have had three prior gun possession charges within the past year.

Yet this fact was irrelevant to the drafters of the RTA law. Currently, gun possession cases must be removed to the Family Court absent any proof that the young offender displayed the firearm as part of a criminal act.

Removal to the Family Court, however, does not mean that the young offender will appear in a courtroom at all. Most of the youth do not get sent to court to be prosecuted, but rather they appear before the NYC Probation Service, in the Family Court, for “Adjustment Services.”

Adjustment diverts offenders away from the court system to community-based counseling and other social services.

In 2019-2021, approximately one-third of all probation intake cases were adjusted. Those cases were closed without any court action or record.

Whether the offender completes the adjustment program, or is sent back to the Family Court for prosecution, the youth’s records remain forever shrouded under a veil of confidentiality.

The Family Court Act specifically forbids any appearances or proceedings to be used at any time against the interests of the offender in any other court.

So even if an adolescent offender appears on a new felony arrest, before the same Youth Court judge one month, one year — even one week — after the removal, information from the Family Court cannot be considered in determining whether the new arrest should remain in the criminal system.

In effect, the state Legislature has passed a law that ignores community safety in favor of keeping judges uninformed on the criminal histories of recidivist defendants.

The state Legislature’s commitment to hiding the histories of violent young offenders was made even more apparent when, as part of the RTA legislation, the victims of young offenders prosecuted by the Family Court are now forbidden from knowing the disposition of their own case.

Simply put, the state Legislature has decreed that you cannot know what happened to the person who mugged you.

How does this square with Gov. Cuomo’s promise that the RTA law made New York a “progressive beacon for the nation” assuring a “more just society for all?”

So, has the RTA lived up to any of its promises?

Yes and no. The law properly removes 16- and 17-year-old offenders from Riker’s Island and mandates that incarcerated offenders be housed in facilities designed for teens.

But these facilities will need expansion to accommodate the burgeoning crime wave in the wake of RTA’s passage.

According to NYPD data, teens under 18 years of age are responsible for between 15%-20% of NYC thefts despite the fact that 15– to 17-year-olds are only 5% of the city population.

But the real impact of the RTA is with guns. According to a seasoned Family Court prosecutor, “I have never seen so many guns.

There are more gun cases than ever before.”

The NYPD says that following the passage of RTA, gun crime has increased 200%.

And more troubling is the fast escalation of crime among those who are initially charged with firearms possession.

According to NYPD data, first reported by W. Dyer Halpern at the Manhattan Institute, in 2017, 4.4% of youths arrested for gun possession were involved in a shooting within one year of that first arrest.

In 2021, that rate more than tripled to 13.7%.

Offenders under 18 arrested for gun possession and involved in a shooting within the subsequent two years skyrocketed from 6.7% to 23.4% between 2017 and 2020.

The police also disclosed that juveniles committed 48 shootings throughout the city in 2019. In 2020 that number jumped to 62 and last year, in 2022, that number reached 148.

NYPD also reports that in the year following the passage of RTA, 48% of 16-year-olds were rearrested.

That represented a 39% increase from the previous year.

Experts believe that gangs have younger members hold onto guns, knowing they can’t be prosecuted. By “Raising the Age,” legislators have lowered the age of the average hardened criminal.

The court results are also troubling.

The majority of 16- and 17-year-olds arrested for felonies have their cases transferred out of the criminal courts to the Family Court. In 2021 (the latest year for which data is available) 1,520 Adolescent Offenders appeared in Youth Parts; 1,331 of the 1,520 (88%) were removed to the Family Court for processing as juvenile delinquents.

Only 112 (7%) of the original 1,500+ felons were convicted of felony offenses before the criminal courts.

How many of these transferred cases were armed or violent felony offenses?

We will never know. Thanks to an overabundance of confidentiality and the RTA, the public and crime victims cannot be told.

Can changes be made to the RTA to get better results?

Of course.

The Legislature needs to loosen its ideological grip and make sure that judges and prosecutors can make informed decisions about who should remain in the criminal justice system and who is best suited for juvenile processing.

Community safety needs to be a consistent factor when considering any transfer to the juvenile system.

Further, information from the Family Court and from probation needs to be made available to the Youth Part so that informed decisions are made that meet the best needs of the public and the youth.

Democrats from Gov. Hochul to President Biden claim that guns are the biggest threat to safety, yet the fact that gun possession results in almost no punishment for someone under 18 in New York suggests that they don’t want to help solve the problem.

Last week, the violent crime wave in Chicago cost an incumbent mayor her job.

Her loss is a historic event. New York state legislators should remember that the voters are watching.

Attorney Peter Reinharz was the Chief Prosecutor in New York City’s Family Courts from 1987-2002. Andrew Stein, a Democrat, served as New York City Council president, 1986-94.