Panel discussion with:

• Assistant Chief of Probabtion Cynthia Smith
• Maureen Polen, Esq.
• Judge Deral Givens
• Melanie Funchess
• Michael Green Esq.
• Facilitators Judge Patricia Marks and Pastor Fredrick Johnson, Sr. 

 

We are co-sponsoring this program with the Monroe County Bar Association Presidents’ Commission on Access to Justice and the Coalition for Racial and Social Justice. Ghis will be a presentation on the complicated interplay of challenges facing young people in our community and related criminal justice involvement, and discussion of what is being and can be done to help the youth address these issues.

There has been some information circling in the community that implies a connection between Raise the Age and Bail Reform and the uptick in certain types of crimes since Covid that does not do justice to the complicated situation. Visiting Assistant Professor Mike Green, Esq. in the RIT Department of Criminal Justice in the College of Liberal Arts, who is also the former Monroe County DA and head of the State Division of Criminal Justice, will present on the actual data, that does not support such a connection. Assistant Chief Probation Officer of the Monroe County Office of Probation—Community Corrections, Cynthia Smith, will talk about the Juvenile Enhanced Diversion Stabilization (JEDS) initiative put in place after the nationwide rise in car thefts and how it has borne local results. Maureen Polen, Esq., Program Director, Attorney for the Child Program of the Legal Aid Society, and Monroe County Family Court Judge Deral Givens will discuss what happens in family court and the youth part of criminal court so that people can understand when a youth would go to which court, why and what happens there.