April 2, 2008

Top of Form 1
Date: 04/02/2008
Session: Regular
1043
1 NEW YORK STATE SENATE
4 THE STENOGRAPHIC RECORD
9 ALBANY, NEW YORK
10 April 2, 2008
11 11:10 a.m.
12
13
14 REGULAR SESSION
15
16
17
18 SENATOR THOMAS P. MORAHAN, Acting President
19 STEVEN M. BOGGESS, Secretary
20
21
22
23
24
25
Candyco Transcription Service, Inc.

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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The
3 Senate will come to order.
4 I ask everyone present to please
5 rise and join me in pledging allegiance to our
6 Flag.
7 (Whereupon, the assemblage recited
8 the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: In the
10 absence of clergy, we'll we bow our heads in a
11 moment of silence.
12 (Whereupon, the assemblage
13 respected a moment of silence.)
15 reading of the Journal.
16 THE SECRETARY: In Senate,
17 Tuesday, April 1, the Senate met pursuant to
18 adjournment. The Journal of Monday, March 31,
19 was read and approved. On motion, Senate
20 adjourned.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:
22 Without objection, the Journal stands approved
23 as read.
24 Presentation of petitions.
25 Messages from the Assembly.

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1 Messages from the Governor.
2 Reports of standing committees.
3 Reports of select committees.
4 Communications and reports from
5 state officers.
6 Motions and resolutions.
7 Senator Skelos.
8 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President,
9 if we could go to the noncontroversial reading
10 of the calendar.
12 Secretary will read.
13 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
14 325, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 6747, an
15 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law and
16 others, in relation to enacting the "Child
17 Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Act of 2008."
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read
19 the last section.
20 THE SECRETARY: Section 59. This
21 act shall take effect on the first of
22 November.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call
24 the roll.
25 (The Secretary called the roll.)

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2 Announce the results.
3 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 41.
5 bill is passed.
7 399, by Senator Nozzolio, Senate Print 6908,
8 an act to amend the Executive Law, in relation
9 to directing the Division of Parole.
13 act shall take effect immediately.
15 the roll.
18 Senator Schneiderman.
19 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you,
20 to explain my vote.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: To
22 explain his vote.
23 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: I think
24 that this bill has some provisions that are
25 commendable as far as transparency of the

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1 parole process. But it also has a provision
2 which I think is something that no member of
3 this house should vote for, requiring that
4 three members of the Parole Board, instead of

5 the current one, must interview a prisoner,
6 and that it requires a unanimous vote of the
7 Parole Board to release an offender.
8 The system of parole has been
9 operating in this state for many, many
10 decades. It operates pretty well. And I
11 believe that trying to make it more -- this is
12 obviously political in two senses. It's
13 designed to try and make it more difficult for
14 people to obtain parole, which I think
15 contravenes the express purposes of our system
16 and of the parole process, which is to ensure
17 that people who have served their time, who
18 have shown evidence of rehabilitation can
19 return to their communities and participate in
20 the life of their communities as citizens
21 again.
22 Except for a handful of people who
23 die in prison, everyone gets out. "They All
24 Come Home" is the name of a book written by
25 Jeremy Travis of John Jay College recently,

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1 pointing out how we have to make better
2 provisions in our state and in our country for
3 reentry.
4 This bill I think is transparently
5 political in a second sense also. It seems to
6 be designed so that hang-over appointees from
7 the Pataki era can stymie the decisions of the

8 new Governor's appointees to the Parole Board
9 to release people who meet all the
10 requirements for parole.
11 The case law is clear; parole is
12 not supposed to be resentencing. Parole is
13 about conduct in prison. Parole is about
14 enabling us to save money and restore people
15 to their communities in a timely and safe
16 manner.
17 I urge everyone in the house to
18 vote no. This would interfere in the process
19 and would be a political power grab, frankly,
20 on behalf of the now departed -- two Governors
21 ago, that guy.
22 Thank you, Mr. President.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Thank
24 you, Senator. You will be recorded in the
25 negative.

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1 Senator Duane.
2 SENATOR DUANE: Thank you, Mr.
3 President.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: To
5 explain your vote?
6 SENATOR DUANE: Yes, Mr.
7 President.
8 You know, the whole point of having
9 a three-person Parole Board panel is to have a
10 difference of opinion emerge and for the

11 members of the Parole Board to actually read
12 about the person coming before and what
13 they've done while they were incarcerated and
14 about the crime and what's happened and what's
15 happened with rehabilitation. And the whole
16 point is that the Parole Board members would
17 have a discussion among themselves and make an
18 informed decision.
19 You know, if there has to be a
20 unanimous decision, then let's just have one
21 person make the decision. Because you could
22 have a renegade person that holds up the
23 whole -- that could decide it every time. And
24 that's ridiculous. We don't do that in any
25 sort of deliberative body. It's totally

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1 antithetical to our system of making decisions
2 in this state and in this nation.
3 It's fixing something that doesn't
4 need to be fixed and shouldn't be fixed. It's
5 not going to make any kind of a perfect parole
6 board. And I just -- I think it's a very,
7 very bad move and I'm actually shocked that it
8 has come before us today. And I would also
9 urge my colleagues to vote no on this, because
10 it's just plain bad public policy.
11 Thank you, Mr. President. I'm
12 voting no.

14 you, Senator Duane. You will be recorded in
15 the negative.
17 THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
18 the negative on Calendar Number 399 are
19 Senators Adams, Connor, Diaz, Duane,
20 Hassell-Thompson, Huntley, L. Krueger,
21 Montgomery, Parker, Perkins, Sabini, Sampson,
22 Schneiderman, and Smith.
23 Ayes, 34. Nays, 14.
25 bill is passed.

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2 419, by Senator DeFrancisco, Senate Print
3 2877, an act to amend the Penal Law and the
4 Criminal Procedure Law, in relation to the
5 crime of engaging in criminal street gang
6 activity.
8 the last section.
11 November.
13 Senator Schneiderman, to explain his vote.
15 Mr. President.
16 This bill I think is overly broad,

17 and I would argue that it probably has a
18 constitutional problem.
19 The problem of criminal street
20 gangs is very serious. I appreciate that it's
21 intended to add an additional penalty for the
22 participation in a gang, and it establishes
23 the crime of engaging in criminal street gang
24 activity.
25 However, I would urge all of you to

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1 consider that this makes it a crime if one
2 person, acting in concert with an individual
3 member of a street gang -- so if you're just
4 with one other person who happens to be in a
5 street gang, and you engage in any unlawful
6 activity -- which includes parking violations,
7 that's an unlawful activity -- you are guilty
8 of the crime of criminal street gang activity.
9 This can't possibly survive
10 constitutional scrutiny. This is not
11 something that is going to help us get rid of
12 the serious, serious problem of gangs. It's a
13 problem in my district; it's a problem all
14 over the state.
15 Let's take some care in drafting a
16 statute that could work. This statute is
17 drafted so broadly as to, you know,
18 possibly -- I think it's quite possible it
19 could be thrown out, but it also basically

20 criminalizes people for hanging out in their
21 neighborhoods with people they know who may or
22 may not be in street gangs. It doesn't even
23 require you to know the person you're hanging
24 out with is in a street gang if you're parked
25 on the wrong side of the street.

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1 So I'm going to vote no, Mr.
2 President. I think we should take a much more
3 serious look at the problem of gang activity.
4 This is not the way to approach it.
5 Thank you.
8 negative.
9 Senator Montgomery.
10 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes,
11 Mr. President. I see here that the City of
12 New York -- specifically, the Office of the
13 Mayor -- is supporting this legislation.
14 And I just want to remind my
15 colleagues that, number one, those of us who
16 are in our districts and working with young
17 people and talking to them, we understand that
18 the best antidote for dealing with the problem
19 of gang activity is the work that the police
20 department, specifically the youth officers
21 and the community officers, do with young
22 people. They do a tremendous and positive job

23 in intercepting and intervening and preventing
24 this street gang activity.
25 Last year, 25 members of this

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1 Legislature wrote a letter to the mayor and
2 the police commissioner requesting that of 800
3 new police graduates, that at least half of
4 them be assigned to our precincts as youth
5 officers and community officers. And we
6 received absolutely no consideration for that
7 request. That request was made specifically
8 in order for us to be able to deal with the
9 problem of street gangs with the police in our
10 communities.
11 So I'm voting no on this, because
12 this is only to address this issue through
13 criminalization. It has nothing to do with
14 preventing gang activity.
15 And I think that is really a
16 statement by our city, by our mayor, that he
17 doesn't really care about preventing gang
18 activity, he just wants to make sure that he
19 has every tool to arrest young people. So I'm
20 voting no.
23 negative.
24 Senator DeFrancisco, to explain his
25 vote.
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1 SENATOR DeFRANCISCO: Yes, I vote
2 aye, which is no surprise since I'm the
3 sponsor.
4 But this bill was definitely
5 supported by the City of New York. And the
6 proposal arose out of the work of the New York
7 City Police Department Gang Division.
8 Street activity, gang activity
9 isn't limited to the city of New York. It's
10 cropping up all over the state of New York.
11 And the purpose of this bill is not only to
12 stop criminal activity, but it's also to help
13 those same young people that some are
14 concerned that they will be swept up in an
15 overly broad bill.
16 Because what this bill talks about
17 is that even if you're not a member of a
18 street gang but you associate yourself with a
19 street gang, to solicit another to join a
20 street gang or to deter someone from leaving
21 this street gang.
22 You know, there's a lot of peer
23 pressure out on the streets, and it would seem
24 to me that these are tools that should be
25 welcomed by anybody in the community,

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1 especially those parents who are extremely

2 concerned, and rightfully so, that their kids
3 might get scooped up into one of these gangs
4 and, if scooped up, can never get out.
5 And so I think it's a very good
6 bill. And it's not overly broad. And it will
7 pass constitutional scrutiny. And it's a tool
8 that's definitely needed to help those young
9 people. And I agree with Senator Montgomery
10 that the best antidote is work done by youth
11 officers, by various public groups that help
12 kids or where kids have constructive
13 activities.
14 But there are always those out
15 there. No matter how good you can make it for
16 young people to veer off from those
17 activities, there's always some that are going
18 to be involved. And we need to protect those
19 that don't want to be involved to be able to
20 either stay out or get out of these gangs. So
21 I vote aye.
23 you, Senator DeFrancisco. You will be
24 recorded in the affirmative.
25 Senator Parker.

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1 SENATOR PARKER: Mr. President,
2 to explain my vote.
3 First let me thank Senator
4 DeFrancisco for putting this bill forward and

5 being concerned about gang activity all over
6 the state. And I agree with you and share
7 your concern. This is really one of the major
8 problems that is arising in all of our
9 communities, clearly, in Syracuse, Buffalo,
10 Yonkers, Long Island. And we really need to
11 find a way that we address it.
12 So it's the right problem but this
13 is not, unfortunately, the cure.
14 I rise again to just say that
15 raising penalties doesn't in fact stop crime.
16 It doesn't. Every study says that -- the Vera
17 Institute, the Justice Department. Everything
18 that we've done shows that raising penalties
19 does not stop the commission of crimes.
20 The reality is that we have to hit
21 the crime where it lives and eliminate the
22 environment in which these crimes in fact are
23 created. If we are in fact really concerned
24 about gang activity, which is primarily youth
25 violence, let's bring back the State

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1 Department of Youth which we used to have 10,
2 15 years ago that in fact gave money to youth
3 programs so that we can do that.
4 In New York City we need a new
5 mayor who believes in helping our young
6 people. We need to go back to having a
7 Department of Youth Services that puts, again,

8 money into after-school programs and youth
9 development programs. We've gotten rid of
10 music, art and athletics as regular parts of
11 the curriculum in our schools, and so our
12 young people are not as engaged because all
13 they're doing is teaching to the test.
14 We really have to engage our young
15 people in a real way. And I know that the
16 mayor and the police department, you know,
17 believes in this. But I would say to that
18 that when all you have is a hammer, everything
19 looks like a nail. So, you know, they're
20 doing what they know how to do.
21 And for six years I've sat here and
22 listened to my colleagues on the other side of
23 the aisle make the same argument about
24 addressing this issue, but yet I have yet to
25 see somebody come up with a bill that puts

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1 money for youth services for the whole state.
2 Let's, in fact, everywhere from
3 Brookhaven to Buffalo to Brooklyn, engage our
4 young people every single day in after-school
5 activities, in music, art, dance, athletics,
6 in after-school tutoring. Let's provide the
7 services that they really need instead of
8 putting $12 million additional money to hold
9 open facilities in the budget, you know, that
10 we know have no people in them.

11 And so when I look at the series of
12 bills today, you know, and people start
13 talking about prison closings, what this looks
14 like to me is that we have prison closings is
15 because, Mr. President, because these
16 facilities are empty and so we say let's
17 figure out a way to fill the facilities so we
18 get an agenda that looks like the one we have
19 in front of us today.
20 I object to that, and so I vote no,
21 Mr. President.
24 negative.
25 Senator Hannon.

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1 SENATOR HANNON: Yes,
2 Mr. President. I really want to commend
3 Senator DeFrancisco for bringing this to the
4 floor.
5 The problem of gangs and gang
6 activity has been late in coming to New York
7 State, but it's becoming extremely pervasive.
8 And the tools that law enforcement needs
9 haven't been there. This bill would add that
10 tool.
11 I have seen neighborhoods
12 devastated by the gang activity in recent
13 months. I have seen law enforcement in

14 Nassau County struggling. Just this week,
15 they brought over 20 people to arrests and
16 indictments because of gang activity. But the
17 difficulty they have are the tools, the
18 procedural tools and the criminal laws, are
19 not there. This would add them. And I
20 commend them; I cannot understand why people
21 would be opposed.
22 The other arguments that have been
23 raised by Senator Schneiderman I think are not
24 well-founded. I think this bill ought to be
25 adopted.

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1 Thank you.
3 you, Senator Hannon. You will be recorded in
4 the affirmative.
5 Senator Hassell-Thompson.
6 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON:
7 Thank you, Mr. President. The
8 majority of the concern that I wanted to raise
9 was raised by Senator Parker. I'm explaining
10 my vote because, as somebody who is seen in
11 their community as somewhat conservative, I
12 certainly don't want to send a message that
13 I'm soft on crime.
14 But I also have been a person who
15 has stood on this floor for the eight years
16 that I have been here and called for us to

17 look at how we choose to address the issue of
18 crime in our communities.
19 One of the reasons that we are
20 faced with the level of gang violence in our
21 communities that we are is that for a very
22 long time, many of the mayors didn't want to
23 acknowledge that there was gang activities.
24 It's not good when you're trying to promote
25 your city and your community to say that we

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1 have gang problems.
2 I know that that was an issue in my
3 city, and yet we saw gang violence escalating.
4 But we also saw that the state was deleting
5 from our budget more and more dollars, more
6 and more concern.
7 And the way in which I think, I
8 believe that we demonstrate how concerned we
9 are is by how much money and creativity. It's
10 not always about money, but it is about how do
11 we creatively look at the problems that are
12 being presented to us. And we have colleges
13 and universities that we continue to support
14 that are turning out reports every day that
15 are telling us and are giving us the answers,
16 and we're not listening.
17 And the answer that we prefer,
18 because it's easier, is to lock them up.
19 Increase the penalties. Lock them up, lock

20 them away. That is better for the economy,
21 because it's very easy. We don't have to
22 think about it. We don't have to see them, we
23 don't have to think about it.
24 We have come to a place and a time
25 where we are incarcerating the brains of the

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1 future. And if that's what you're satisfied
2 with doing, then continue to do that.
3 I suggest that we should not be
4 satisfied with the way in which we look at
5 crimes in our state. I am not soft on crime,
6 but I am not prepared to lock up another
7 generation of young people because we refuse
8 to be creative about what we do in these
9 chambers.
10 It's not always about money, but it
11 is about how do we think-tank this and how do
12 we look at the data that is available to us
13 and use some great intelligence that is
14 already in this state to look at the way we
15 solve problems.
16 We have the power to do that. We
17 choose, we choose to take the easy route. We
18 have to stop it.
22 negative.
23 Senator Volker.
24 SENATOR VOLKER: Mr. President, I
25 rise quickly. I agree and disagree with just

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1 about everything I've heard on the floor of
2 this Legislature.
3 First of all, this is a good bill.
4 I wish I had it when I was the youth officer
5 in Depew, New York, a number of years ago. If
6 you don't think there were gangs then, you're
7 wrong.
8 But the problem is -- and by the
9 way, this is a misdemeanor. In New York City,
10 it's like a traffic violation or a -- I mean,
11 nobody goes to jail in New York City for a
12 misdemeanor. It's ridiculous. If you shoot
13 somebody, it may get brought down to a
14 misdemeanor, let's be realistic.
15 Why do you want a bill like this?
16 For the average kid who's involved in a gang?
17 No. What you want this bill for is to get at
18 the leaders.
19 I happen to agree, Senator
20 Montgomery, with your assessment on youth
21 officers. The only trouble is, Ray Kelly,
22 who's probably the best commissioner of
23 police, in my opinion, in the country -- the
24 problem is, how could he get 400 youth
25 officers? The 800 cops he's got still leaves

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1 him about 10,000 short of probably the numbers
2 he should have. And by the way, they're
3 probably underpaid. They really are. It's
4 hard to say that today, but they are.
5 But you've got to remember
6 something. Oh, yes, we should give more
7 treatment. And you're looking at a guy who
8 sponsored and I used to handle all the youth
9 stuff years ago. And we had a much bigger
10 youth budget then, although it's actually
11 not -- it wasn't bigger. It's probably about
12 the same. But the difference is we haven't
13 increased it, and that's true.
14 But I think we have to understand
15 that treatment's fine. By the way, we are not
16 locking up a generation in this state. That
17 is baloney. 75 percent of the inmates in our
18 prison system today are violent inmates. It
19 used to be 35. It's 25 percent nonviolent.
20 Most of them are pretty big offenders. And we
21 have shock incarceration. That's national
22 statistics -- and probably true, by the way.
23 California has got 185,000 inmates, I think it
24 is, and we got 62,0000. We were at the same
25 level just a few years ago.

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1 I agree with you that we probably

2 locked up too many people. That's changed.
3 Thank goodness it's changed. We're now
4 being -- we're different. The only trouble we
5 have to watch out for is that we don't go back
6 to what happened before the Rockefeller Drug
7 Laws: just let everybody out, and sentence
8 them in New York City to one-fifth of what
9 they do upstate.
10 Those studies, by the way, do not
11 show that being tough on crime doesn't deter.
12 It does. But what it shows is that that's not
13 the only thing you've got to do. You've got
14 to do more than that. And I agree with that.
15 I'll only say this. This was Mike
16 Balboni's bill, who's now the head of criminal
17 justice [sic]. I think it was a good bill
18 then. I think it's still a good bill. I
19 commend John DeFrancisco. And I have to say
20 this, that we have to do more on both sides --
21 more to deal with the criminal end, and we've
22 got to do more with the other side too, for
23 treatment.
24 I vote aye.

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2 affirmative.
3 Senator Marcellino.
4 SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you,

5 Mr. President.
6 I, like Senator Volker, agree with
7 a lot of what's been said on both sides of
8 this argument. I commend Senator DeFrancisco
9 for picking up this very important bill.
10 Let's be clear. When we talk about
11 gangs, we are not talking about young people.
12 Many gangs that are out in my district, out in
13 my area, which some would consider mostly
14 affluent, are international gangs. They're
15 not arising from 13-year-olds and 12-year-olds
16 and 14-year-olds, they're 30-, 40- and
17 50-year-olds. And they answer to a higher
18 authority in their own sphere of opportunity
19 and of work.
20 They're a dangerous group. They
21 are recruiting young people by mechanisms of
22 enticement and sometimes flat-out coercion.
23 Any tools we can provide that will help us
24 give young people a means of saying no to
25 these people, a means of avoiding these

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1 people, I think is a good thing. You have to.
2 You have to give them the opportunity to get
3 away from these criminals who are trying to
4 lure a generation of young people into them.
5 Programs for our young people to
6 keep them off the streets, to keep them
7 occupied? Great idea. Many exist. They

8 exist in the city now, and they exist on Long
9 Island. They exist everywhere in the state.
10 If we can find a more effective program that
11 will work and put it in, I'm all for it. Do
12 it.
13 But let's not throw the baby out
14 with the bathwater. You need the tools to
15 make it work. Sometimes the carrot is good,
16 but you also need the stick.
17 And I think Senator DeFrancisco's
18 bill is not an unreasonable measure and not an
19 unreasonable bill. I think it should be
20 passed and probably will be ultimately, if it
21 gets into the other house, negotiated and we
22 can probably include a lot of the other stuff
23 that's needed and that we want to make it a
24 better bill.
25 So let's pass this bill today and

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1 move this discussion forward. I vote aye,
2 Mr. President.
5 affirmative.
6 Senator Bonacic.
7 SENATOR BONACIC: Thank you,
8 Mr. President.
9 You know, gang activity is not an
10 issue that we should be polarized on on each

11 side. I remember a generation ago the biggest
12 threat of harm to our communities was
13 organized crime. And what police had to do at
14 that time, and law enforcement, they had to
15 become sophisticated in monitoring organized
16 crime -- eavesdropping, surveillance,
17 undercover operations.
18 This generation, the growth of gang
19 activity is rising, and it's becoming a threat
20 to our communities like the mob was a
21 generation ago. So the police and law
22 enforcement do not have the tools or the
23 sophistication that they would like to try to
24 impair growing criminal activity when it comes
25 to gangs.

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1 It's in the schools. It's in the
2 inner cities. It's in the communities. It's
3 in African-American neighborhoods. It's in
4 Asian neighborhoods. It's in Caucasian
5 neighborhoods. It's in Hispanic
6 neighborhoods. It is creeping universally in
7 all our communities.
8 So the fact that we want to punish
9 young people more, I don't think that's the
10 intent of this legislation. The fact that we
11 need more money for youth programs, I say yes,
12 we do. Having more educational opportunities
13 and recreational opportunities for our youth.

14 It's not mutually exclusive to also supporting
15 giving law enforcement the tools that they
16 need so they can have more qualified people
17 working to try to stop the growing threat of
18 gang activity.
19 And the last point that I'd like to
20 make is there are parents out there that feel
21 helpless. They love their children, but they
22 can't prevent them from being lured,
23 intimidated, or seduced into gang activity.
24 And when we've had the dissolution
25 of the family unit over the last decade to two

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1 decades, it gave the gangs an opportunity to
2 move in and fill that vacuum of so-called
3 family and belonging. And we know that that
4 is not true of what a real family does with
5 love and nourishment. That's an arena of
6 destruction, maybe death, but certainly maybe
7 jail confinement.
8 We are in this together. And I
9 respect those that vote no for the reasons
10 they've said. But keep in mind, we have to
11 work together on multiple approaches to solve
12 this problem. And I want to commend Senator
13 DeFrancisco for putting forth only a part of
14 the solution. Much more has to be done on
15 that.
16 I vote yes. Thank you,

17 Mr. President.
20 affirmative.
21 Senator Diaz.
22 SENATOR DIAZ: Thank you,
23 Mr. President.
24 This is a bill that in the past I
25 have entertained and I have looked upon this

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1 bill positively in the past. However, I have
2 to tell you that in this budget there were
3 $10 million for youth for after-school
4 programs, $10 million, and it was cut. When
5 we forget about our youth, forget about our
6 after-school programs, they keep on hanging
7 out there and doing nothing.
8 Listening to Senator Parker and
9 reading the paper this morning and listening
10 to the Senator that said that -- Volker --
11 that said that commissioner -- the police
12 commissioner in the City of New York is the
13 best one in the nation, I agree with that.
14 He's a good police commissioner. However,
15 reading the paper this morning, the mayor of
16 the City of New York has given the kitchen,
17 the sink, the toilet, the bathroom and
18 everything else to those City Council members
19 that voted for the congestion pricing. It

20 says there's close to a billion dollars in
21 perks.
22 Then I have to question myself.
23 Police commissioner the best one, the mayor
24 giving out money for congestion pricing more
25 than what we're going to get from the federal

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1 government. How come there is no money, how
2 come there is no money for after-school
3 programs? How come we have to keep cutting
4 money for our youth to keep them out of the
5 streets, to give them sports?
6 You know, my daughter lives upstate
7 here in New York. And when I visit my
8 daughter and the school that her children
9 goes, I mean they have tennis, they have
10 basketball, they have swimming, they have
11 horse racing, they have all kinds of
12 entertainment in upstate.
13 So, you know, but in the city there
14 is no money. There is no money to give them
15 sports, to give them something to keep them
16 out of the streets.
17 Yeah, gangs, of course we have
18 gangs. In New York we have the Bloods, the
19 Crips, the Latin Kings, the DDP -- Dominicans
20 Don't Play -- we have all kind of gangs. And
21 we have to eliminate them. We have to do away
22 with gangs.
23 But the only way that we're going
24 to do that is, as Senator Parker said,
25 providing our youth with decent, responsive

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1 programs and after-school programs. That's
2 the only way.
3 Today I used to look at this bill
4 positively. After seeing that we cut
5 $10 million that we have put there for
6 after-school programs and to see the mayor
7 giving out the kitchen sink, the toilet, the
8 bathtub, and everything else for congestion
9 pricing and there is no money for youth
10 activity, ladies and gentlemen, I am voting
11 no. This is something that should not be
12 done.
13 Thank you very much.
15 you, Senator Diaz. You will be recorded in
16 the negative.
17 Senator Adams.
18 SENATOR ADAMS: Thank you,
19 Mr. President.
20 I just want to -- as a member of
21 the law enforcement community, and I will
22 always consider myself to be, I would have
23 loved to have a bill like this. But the
24 reality is police can't have whatever they
25 want. It's important for us to control their

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1 powers.
2 And it's easy for us to sit in the
3 sterilized environment of the Senate floor and
4 talk about a misdemeanor arrest as no big
5 thing. And it concerns me that we have
6 embarked upon a culture of incarceration as
7 tolerable. And as I look up into the
8 bleachers and see these young people up here,
9 and we continue to say to them: So what if
10 you have handcuffs on, so what if you go
11 through central booking, so what if you're
12 arrested?
13 No, it's not "so what." When a
14 child is incarcerated, when they wear
15 handcuffs, every time they hear a police
16 siren, every time they see a police movie,
17 every time they see a police officer, they
18 relive that experience. There's nothing
19 normal about being arrested. There's nothing
20 just laissez-faire about being arrested. When
21 that cell door closes, you will hear it for
22 the rest of your life.
23 And we need to stop with this
24 insidious thought process of so what, they
25 just got a misdemeanor. No, a misdemeanor

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1 stops you from being a police officer, it

2 stops you from having a Civil Service job, it
3 stops you from, when you become an adult,
4 being able to participate in society.
5 We are creating an environment
6 where countless numbers of people, under
7 Police Commissioner Kelly, have been stopped
8 and have been criminalized. And so I'm not
9 going to ever succumb to the belief and the
10 philosophy that handcuffing a person and
11 incarcerating them is a normal form of living
12 in the greatest city in the greatest nation on
13 this planet. No, that's wrong. That's wrong.
14 And I'm voting no to this bill.
15 We do have to do more about gangs;
16 I agree with Senator DeFrancisco. We do have
17 a major problem with gangs, and we do need to
18 find with a way to deal with the issue of
19 gangs. I think the problem has spread from
20 Long Island all the way up to our upstate
21 region. We must stop this issue with gangs.
22 But we can't send a message to our
23 young people that we are more willing to
24 invest in a pair of handcuffs than we are
25 willing to invest in an after-school program.

(518) 371-8910
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1 We can't send a message that we are more
2 willing to see them going to central booking
3 than we are willing to see them go to a
4 centralized environment where they can learn

5 from each other.
6 And I when we continue to submit
7 bills like this, that's the message that we
8 send. So I am voting no on this bill in hopes
9 that we start the process of showing that we
10 want to invest in our children's future and
11 not give them a terrible start from the
12 beginning with a misdemeanor arrest. It's
13 never just a misdemeanor, it is an arrest.
16 negative.
17 Senator Craig Johnson.
18 SENATOR CRAIG JOHNSON: Thank
19 you, Mr. President.
20 I figure since it's my
21 predecessor's bill, I want to channel Senator
22 Balboni for a moment and speak. But I want to
23 speak on behalf and in favor of this
24 legislation.
25 And I remember as a county

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1 legislator working with Senator Balboni in
2 Nassau County as he worked to secure more
3 funds for the Nassau County Police Department
4 for antigang activity and working on these
5 pieces of legislation. Because as my
6 colleague Senator Marcellino pointed out, gang
7 activity is not centralized in New York City

8 and the boroughs, it's spread like wildfire
9 and like weeds all across our great state and,
10 in particular, Long Island, where gangs like
11 MS-13 are popping up all over the place.
12 And like Senator Marcellino said,
13 and I agree, it's not just about teenagers.
14 It's about the 40- and 50-year-olds, the gang
15 leaders who are coming into town.
16 And I commend Senator DeFrancisco
17 for bringing this bill. And I agree with my
18 colleagues, we need to do more in terms of
19 funding. And maybe that day when we can
20 secure those funds and put those bills before
21 the Legislature and the State Senate is coming
22 soon.
23 But right now we need to do
24 something, because there's an important
25 component to this legislation and in reviewing

(518) 371-8910
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1 the bill, and that's about making it a crime
2 to deter somebody or to attempt to deter
3 another from leaving a criminal street gang.
4 I think there's a saying "Blood in and blood
5 out." And when you join a gang, it's blood
6 in, and when you try to leave a gang, it's
7 blood out.
8 And how can we not punish those who
9 attempt to keep within their grasps a young
10 man or a young woman who has decided -- maybe

11 through an after-school program that was lucky
12 to get funded, maybe by meeting a mentor and
13 having them persuade him or her to leave the
14 gang, leave that criminal enterprise -- how
15 can we not punish those who want to keep them
16 in?
17 That's what this bill does. That's
18 what this bill does. It says enough. And it
19 gives those people and those young people,
20 maybe older people, a second chance who are
21 trying to free themselves, and it punishes
22 those who try to keep them in.
23 And so I support this legislation
24 today. And it's not enough, it's not enough
25 for our young people. We don't want them to

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1 even be exposed to these type of activities.
2 And we need to do more as a State Legislature.
3 But until that day when we can, we need to do
4 something else, and that's to punish those who
5 try to keep our young people within these
6 gangs.
7 So I vote yes, Mr. President.
8 Thank you.
10 you, Senator Johnson. You will be recorded in
11 the affirmative.
12 The clerk will continue to call the
13 roll.
16 Announce the results when ready.
19 Senators Adams, Diaz, Duane, Hassell-Thompson,
20 Huntley, L. Krueger, Montgomery, Parker,
21 Perkins, Sampson and Schneiderman.
22 Ayes, 43. Nays, 11.
24 bill is passed.

(518) 371-8910
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2 act to amend the Penal Law and the Criminal
3 Procedure Law, in relation to creating.
5 the last section.
8 November.
10 the roll.
16 bill is passed.
18 528, by Senator Maziarz, Senate Print 112, an
19 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law, in
20 relation to enacting criteria.
25 November.

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2 the roll.
8 Senators Hassell-Thompson, L. Krueger,
9 Montgomery, Parker, Perkins, Sampson and
10 Schneiderman. Also Senator Huntley.
11 Ayes, 47. Nays, 8.
13 bill is passed.
15 532, by Senator Young, Senate Print 378, an
17 relation to eligibility for youthful offender
18 status.

23 November.
25 the roll.

(518) 371-8910
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6 Senators Connor, Duane, Hassell-Thompson,
7 Huntley, L. Krueger, Montgomery, Parker,
8 Perkins, Schneiderman and Stewart-Cousins.
9 Ayes, 46. Nays, 10.
11 bill is passed.
13 592, by Senator Trunzo, Senate Print 755, an
14 act authorizing the Town of Brookhaven,
15 Suffolk County.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: There
17 is a home-rule message at the desk.
18 Read the last section.
22 the roll.

(518) 371-8910
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3 bill is passed.
5 628, by Senator Alesi, Senate Print 163, an
6 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to the
7 crime of false personation.
9 the last section.
12 November.
14 the roll.
17 Senator Montgomery, to explain your vote.
19 Mr. President.
20 I know that I've debated this bill
21 in the past. I always have voted no on it,
22 and I will continue to do so because it simply
23 is another one of those bills that is
24 particularly, as I interpret it, directed
25 toward youth, and there is no apparent need

(518) 371-8910
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1 for this bill. It does not do anything to
2 improve the capacity of the police to do their
3 job. It simply removes the requirement that a
4 person must be informed by the police officer
5 of the consequences of misrepresenting himself
6 or herself.
7 There is no reason why the police
8 can't just say "If you do not tell me the
9 truth about who you are, you could be charged
10 with a Class A misdemeanor." I don't know why
11 Senator Alesi has decided that he does not
12 want people to have the information.
13 I think that we have -- I've never
14 heard a police officer complain that they had
15 to read the Miranda rights to a person. I've
16 certainly not heard any complaints from any
17 police officer, ever, that there is a problem
18 in them informing a person when they stop the
19 person that if you conduct this behavior, you
20 can be charged with X, Y or Z charge.
21 I think this is just an attempt to
22 make sure that any young person in particular,
23 or any person who makes the mistake, does not
24 know the consequences, can be charged without
25 them realizing that this is not acceptable.

(518) 371-8910
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1 So I'm going to vote no on it. I

2 don't see any need for it. And I think,
3 again, it is directed to young people, and
4 especially young people in districts like I
5 represent. So I'm voting no.
7 you, Senator Montgomery. You will be recorded
8 in the negative.
12 Senators Adams, Connor, Diaz, Duane,
13 Hassell-Thompson, Huntley, L. Krueger,
14 Montgomery, Parker, Perkins, Savino,
15 Schneiderman and Stewart-Cousins. Also
16 Senator Sampson.
17 Ayes, 43. Nays, 14.
19 bill is passed.
21 629, by Senator Morahan, Senate Print 248, an
22 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
23 establishing the crime of unlawful possession.

(518) 371-8910
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3 November.

5 the roll.
11 bill is passed.
14 an act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
15 establishing the crime of unlawful purchase.
20 November.
22 the roll.

(518) 371-8910
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3 bill is passed.
4 Senator Breslin, why do you rise?
5 SENATOR BRESLIN: Yes, thank you,
6 Mr. President.
7 I would like the record to reflect

8 that on Calendar Number 528, S112, had I been
9 in chambers I would have voted in the
10 negative, as I have in the past.
13 record will so reflect.
14 The Secretary will read.
16 632, by Senator Skelos, Senate Print 1815, an
18 assaults at sports contests.
23 November.
25 the roll.

(518) 371-8910
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6 Senators Hassell-Thompson, Montgomery and
7 Perkins.
8 Ayes, 54. Nays, 3.
10 bill is passed.
12 636, by Senator DeFrancisco, Senate Print
13 2878, an act to amend the Criminal Procedure
14 Law, in relation to the victim's statement.
18 act shall take effect on the 60th day.
20 the roll.

(518) 371-8910
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1 bill is passed.
3 638, by Senator Golden, Senate Print 3441, an
5 assault.
7 the last section.
10 November.
12 the roll.

18 bill is passed.
21 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law and
22 the Family Court Act, in relation to delivery.

(518) 371-8910
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3 the roll.
9 bill is passed.
12 an act to amend the Penal Law and the
13 Correction Law, in relation to sexual conduct.

19 the roll.
25 bill is passed.

(518) 371-8910
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2 644, by Senator Saland, Senate Print 4789, an
4 theft of credit card.
6 the last section.
9 November.
11 the roll.
17 bill is passed.
19 649, by Senator Golden, Senate Print 5730, an

21 assault against employees.
25 act shall take effect on the 90th day.

(518) 371-8910
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2 the roll.
5 Senator DeFrancisco, to explain his vote.
6 SENATOR DeFRANCISCO: Yes, I vote
7 yes on this and also on Senate 3441, and my
8 remarks apply to both of them.
9 Because what we've been doing over
10 the years, and I've said this before, is we're
11 making so many exceptions as to what degree of
12 assault it is based upon who or what job the
13 individual has that we are almost at the point
14 where the exceptions eat up the general rule.
15 So I vote aye, but I would hope
16 that someday we would be in a position to
17 treat everybody the same. If the crime is
18 serious enough, it should be a certain level
19 of crime. If it's not as serious, it should
20 be a lesser crime no matter who the victim may
21 be.

24 affirmative.
25 Senator Volker, to explain his

(518) 371-8910
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1 vote.
2 SENATOR VOLKER: Mr. President,
3 speaking in favor of this bill, I want to
4 totally agree with Senator DeFrancisco. My
5 problem is that the Assembly will not consider
6 any blanket increases.
7 There is no argument that I know
8 of -- well, outside of the City of New York --
9 against that assault statutes should be
10 upgraded. This house for a whole decade has
11 passed general statutes, and not unreasonable,
12 I think, upgrading the assault statutes. Our
13 problem is that none of that has occurred.
14 And as a result, we have got some statutes
15 through the Assembly by specifying groups.
16 Personally, I happen to agree
17 entirely with Senator DeFrancisco. And I
18 strongly believe that Senator Golden would
19 probably agree with this. The problem is we
20 have to look at life the way it is. So that's
21 why this bill is here.
22 I vote aye.
25 affirmative.
(518) 371-8910
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4 Senators Montgomery and Perkins.
7 bill is passed.
11 relation to notification.
17 the roll.
23 bill is passed.
25 658, by Senator C. Kruger, Senate Print 7011,

(518) 371-8910
1096
1 an act to amend Chapter 906 of the Laws of

2 1984 amending the Social Services Law.
4 the last section.
8 the roll.
14 bill is passed.
15 Senator Skelos, that completes the
16 noncontroversial reading of the calendar.
17 SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you,
18 Mr. President.
19 There will be an immediate meeting
20 of the Majority in the Majority Conference
21 Room.
22 And the Senate will stand at ease
23 and reconvene at 3:00 p.m.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: There
25 will be an immediate meeting of the Majority

(518) 371-8910
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1 in the Majority Conference Room, and the
2 Senate will reconvene at 3:00 p.m.
3 (Whereupon, the Senate stood at
4 ease at 12:12 p.m.)

5 ACTING PRESIDENT HANNON: Senator
6 Skelos.
8 there will be an immediate conference of the
9 Majority in the Majority Conference Room, and
10 the Senate will stand at ease.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT HANNON:
12 Immediate conference of the Majority in the
13 Majority Conference Room.
14 The Senate continues to stand at
15 ease.
16 (Whereupon, the Senate reconvened
17 at 4:39 p.m.)
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MAZIARZ:
19 Senator Skelos.
21 the Senate will reconvene at 6:00 p.m. sharp.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MAZIARZ: The
23 Senate will reconvene at 6:00 p.m. sharp.
24 SENATOR SKELOS: And we'll stand
25 at ease.

(518) 371-8910
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MAZIARZ: The
2 Senate will continue to stand at ease.
4 ease at 4:40 p.m.)
6 at 6:20 p.m.)
7 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: The

8 Senate will come to order.
9 Senator Skelos.
11 there will be an immediate meeting of the
12 Finance Committee in the Majority Conference
13 Room.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: There
15 will be an immediate meeting of the Finance
16 Committee in the Majority Conference Room.
17 The Senate will stand at ease.
19 ease at 6:21 p.m.)
21 at 6:27 p.m.)
22 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: Senator
23 Skelos.
25 if we could return to reports of standing

(518) 371-8910
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1 committees for the report of the Finance
2 Committee.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: Reports
4 of standing committees.
5 The Secretary will read the report
6 of the Finance Committee.
7 THE SECRETARY: Senator O.
8 Johnson, from the Committee on Finance,
9 reports the following bill direct to third
10 reading:
11 Senate Print 6800D, Senate Budget
12 Bill, an act making appropriations for the
13 support of government: Public Protection and
14 General Government Budget.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: Without
16 objection, the bill is reported direct to
17 third reading.
18 Senator Skelos.
20 if we could take up Senate Bill 6800D.
22 Secretary will read.
24 712, Senate Budget Bill, Senate Print 6800D,
25 an act making appropriations for the support

(518) 371-8910
1100
1 of government: Public Protection and General
2 Government Budget.
4 Skelos.
6 is there a message of necessity at the desk?
7 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: A
8 message of necessity is at the desk.
9 SENATOR SKELOS: Move to accept.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: All in
11 favor signify by saying aye.
12 (Response of "Aye.")
13 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: Any

14 opposed, nay.
15 (No response.)
17 message is accepted.
18 Read the last section.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: Call
22 the roll.
25 Krueger, to explain her vote.

(518) 371-8910
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1 SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
2 Mr. President.
3 I rise to explain that I cannot
4 vote for this bill. While there are certainly
5 pieces of it that I support, this bill is
6 literally hot off the presses. There is no
7 memo, which is required even with a message of
8 necessity under our new budget rules.
9 We continue to spend money without
10 having a revenue bill, the wrong way to do a
11 budget, to say the least. This is also the
12 general government and public protection bill,
13 but there's no general government money for
14 AIM funding for the City of New York or
15 revenue sharing for various cities and towns
16 and counties throughout the state.

17 So I feel it's an incomplete bill,
18 that we are doing it in the wrong order. We
19 should be figuring out our revenues before
20 we're spending our money. And while I hear
21 rumors that we might do revenue-sharing
22 somewhere else at a later time, the tradition
23 of this Legislature has been to put local
24 government money into the general government
25 budget.

(518) 371-8910
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1 So I do not believe this is a full
2 budget bill or a satisfactory one. I'll be
3 voting no.
6 Krueger will be recorded in the negative.
7 Anyone wishing to vote no please
8 signify by raising your hand.
9 Senator Schneiderman, to explain
10 his vote.
12 Mr. President. I also will be voting against
13 this bill.
14 I've been serving on the New York
15 State Sentencing Commission for the last
16 several months, and we've had public hearings,
17 we've had private meetings, we've had an array
18 of experts from all around the country,
19 including people from the universities and

20 programs of our own state. They have
21 consistently advised us, and I have concluded
22 and I think our final report will conclude,
23 that we know what works in terms of criminal
24 justice programing at this point in the
25 history of the United States.

(518) 371-8910
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1 We know that cognitive and
2 behavioral therapy works. We know what kinds
3 of alternative programs work. We know what
4 the rate track in criminal justice policy and
5 what is the wrong track.
6 I'm sorry to say that this budget
7 bill is as good an exhibit of the wrong track
8 in criminal justice policy as you could
9 possibly have. This favors incarceration over
10 treatment. Indeed, it takes it a step
11 further. It favors keeping prisons open, even
12 when we're not incarcerating anyone in those
13 prisons, over treatment.
14 The prisons that are kept open by
15 this bill -- and let's note, Mr. President,
16 that the Governor proposed, the Executive
17 Budget proposed closing prisons and the
18 Senate, this body, has taken responsibility
19 for and is indeed responsible for keeping
20 prisons open we do not need, at a projected
21 cost, this year, of $10 million a year, the
22 next year $33 million, ultimately up to around

23 $70 million a year.
24 In an atmosphere where we have a
25 budget crisis, where we're telling senior

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1 centers we don't have enough money for you,
2 we're telling school districts we don't have
3 enough money for you, we are keeping prisons
4 open we don't need at a cost of $70 million a
5 year. What kind of public policy is that?
6 But wait, there is more. This
7 budget does not restore the funding that was
8 sought by the treatment community to expand
9 alternatives to incarceration treatment
10 programs and reentry programs. There is a
11 small restoration -- and we got the bill so
12 late that it's difficult for us to analyze it
13 as fully as we really should before we have to
14 vote on it -- but there's a $3.1 million
15 restoration in General Fund support for
16 alternatives to incarceration, $3.1 million.
17 The DOCS budget, the budget of the Department
18 of Corrections, is $3 billion. And so what
19 we're doing is adding $3 million for
20 alternatives to incarceration.
21 This is money well-spent. It has
22 been documented in study after study. And I
23 know that Senator Young expressed an interest
24 in studies of recidivism. There are dozens of
25 study of recidivism that we have before us in

(518) 371-8910
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1 the sentencing commission that consistently
2 show that cognitive behavioral therapy,
3 alternative programs, if you use a risk/needs
4 assessment instrument, reduce recidivism
5 significantly.
6 This is money well-spent. This
7 saves the state money. This gets our children
8 back into their communities, back as
9 productive members of society. This undoes
10 the last three decades of criminal justice
11 policy. We should be undoing the last three
12 decades of criminal justice policy that have
13 resulted in the United States having 3 million
14 people in prisons, virtually all of them
15 African-American and Latinos.
16 We are destroying communities by
17 continuing on the wrong track in criminal
18 justice policy. We are costing the taxpayers
19 of New York a fortune by continuing on the
20 wrong track in criminal justice policy.
21 I urge everyone in this house to
22 vote no, first of all because you haven't had
23 time to read the bill so you don't know what's
24 in it, but second of all because, to the
25 extent I have read it, it continues us on that

(518) 371-8910
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1 wrong track.
2 I'm voting no, Mr. President, and
3 urging everyone to do likewise.
5 Schneiderman will be recorded in the negative.
6 Senator Nozzolio, to explain his
7 vote.
8 SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
9 Mr. President and my colleagues.
10 This Senate should be proud of the
11 fact that over the last decade the policies
12 initiated here have resulted in New York
13 State's crime rate dropping more dramatically
14 than any state crime-rate drop in the history
15 of our nation.
16 It's because we stood tall to
17 establish a zero tolerance for violence. We
18 passed, time and time again, legislation that
19 ended parole for violent felons, that
20 established a zero tolerance for violence,
21 that established a zero tolerance for sex
22 offenders, that established a zero tolerance
23 against the criminal element in our state.
24 The result of that has been
25 dramatic. It has been significant, and we

(518) 371-8910
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1 should all be proud of it. But those policies
2 have a consequence. And the consequence is
3 that the most violent of felons are kept
4 behind prison walls for longer periods of

5 time.
6 What we have is a correctional
7 system that requires rightsizing. And this
8 Senate, when hearing of the rightsizing by
9 taking a meat ax and cutting four correctional
10 facilities by the last governor, this Senate
11 conducted a hearing beyond the budget hearing
12 process and held the correctional
13 commissioner's feet to the fire and said:
14 Have you rationalized this system? Have you
15 insured the safety and integrity of the
16 system? And, most importantly, have you
17 protected the 25,000 brave men and women who
18 work in our correctional system today and
19 insured that no facility would be a tinderbox,
20 no facility would be a cause for violent riot
21 behavior?
22 Frankly, I am proud of the Senate,
23 and I thank Senator Volker, I thank those who
24 served on the public protection committees
25 that established that we will not close the

(518) 371-8910
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1 correctional facilities unless we have a total
2 system of our prisons rationalized in a way
3 that makes sense for our taxpayers.
4 And what was penny-wise in the
5 cutting of those facilities was
6 dollar-foolish, and that would cost, if the
7 prior governor's policies went into effect,

8 would cost our taxpayers many, many more
9 dollars than were allegedly being saved under
10 the proposal.
11 So I thank those who supported
12 this. I know that those brave men and women
13 who walk the toughest law enforcement beat in
14 America are thankful for our stand to
15 rationalize the correctional system in a way
16 that is meaningful and protective.
17 Our conference has never stated
18 that you build prisons to grow jobs. That's
19 not why you grow prisons and build prisons and
20 save prisons. You do establish a policy
21 that's protective of our citizenry. And
22 that's why this conference and this Senate is
23 going to support this legislation.
24 Before I sit down, I also wish to
25 add that the school resource officer program,

(518) 371-8910
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1 a way to prevent gang violence, to prevent
2 violence and all kinds of other crime and
3 criminality across our state in our schools,
4 is being maintained by this legislation. And
5 for that, Mr. President, I think it's a great
6 step in the right direction and I thank all
7 those who stood to support this important
8 issue.
10 Nozzolio will be recorded in the affirmative.

11 Senator Saland, to explain his
12 vote.
13 SENATOR SALAND: Thank you,
14 Mr. President.
15 I too rise, as did Senator
16 Nozzolio, with regard to the effect that this
17 bill will have on our correction system.
18 A number of weeks ago I had the
19 opportunity to attend a forum in my district
20 at a local community college in which the
21 Commissioner of Corrections was speaking in
22 the context of the closure of Hudson
23 Correctional Facility, a facility that was at
24 or near capacity, had been at or near
25 capacity, a facility that the corrections

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1 people had identified as virtually a model
2 facility, high grades in virtually every
3 aspect you could think of, and very much taken
4 by surprise by the proposal to close.
5 And I had to listen to the
6 commissioner at that event basically say, in
7 response to a question from one of the over
8 400 people there expressing their concerns
9 about the closure, I had to listen to him say:
10 "I don't care what the Legislature does, I'm
11 closing this facility."
12 Well, I suspect that any one of 212
13 legislators would have found that to be a

14 totally unacceptable way to deal with the
15 issue, would have probably been not merely
16 personally offended, but offended on behalf of
17 the entire institution that the administrative
18 official would just basically blow off the
19 Legislature in that fashion.
20 This facility has, as I said, been
21 an exemplary facility. It's been a facility
22 that run at capacity or near capacity for as
23 long as anybody can remember. It's a facility
24 which had seen literally millions of dollars
25 worth of improvements provided to make it an

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1 even better facility. And to say one was
2 perplexed by its suggested closing would be an
3 understatement.
4 The bottom line is that this bill
5 will preserve that facility as an ongoing
6 facility. It will not only serve the same
7 function as it has always served as a
8 correctional facility, but I would add, very
9 vitally, in a community, a city and in a
10 county that has an extraordinarily challenging
11 time today to have disrupted so many lives,
12 will have a major impact not only on the
13 social fabric of the community but also on the
14 economic fabric of the community.
15 And I'm thankful that we were able
16 to accomplish this, and I'm thankful that we

17 will be able to go forward with regard to a
18 mainstay in our corrections system and a
19 mainstay in our community.
20 I vote in favor of this measure,
21 Mr. President, and thank you.
23 Saland will be recorded in the affirmative.
24 Senator Diaz, to explain his vote.
25 SENATOR DIAZ: Yes, sir. Thank

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1 you, Mr. President.
2 You know, this is my fifth year
3 here in the Senate. And I could say that
4 those five years there has never been a good
5 budget, the perfect budget. And I don't think
6 that there's ever going to be a perfect budget
7 that we could all agree upon.
8 So there is always going to be
9 problems that some people don't like, other
10 people like. See, in this budget, there is
11 not everything that I would like to see. But
12 as I said before, when is it that we are going
13 to have the perfect budget? I doubt that we
14 are ever going to have one.
15 I have to congratulate the new
16 Governor, David Paterson, because in the few
17 days since he took charge of the governorship,
18 he managed to get to an agreement with Senator
19 Bruno, with Shelly Silver from the Assembly,

20 to come to a budget.
21 It is not a perfect budget. There
22 will never be a perfect budget, and I'm
23 repeating myself again and again on that. But
24 it's a budget that we could live with.
25 And again, I have to congratulate

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1 the three parties, especially the new
2 Governor. In such a short time, he managed to
3 get people together, to work together without
4 the fight that we usually see here in the five
5 years that I have been here. So there have
6 been no bad discrepancies, without big fights.
7 So congratulations to the three
8 parties, congratulations to the new Governor.
9 And you can count me yes.
11 Diaz will be recorded in the affirmative.
12 If there are no other Senators
13 wishing to explain their vote -- Senator
14 DeFrancisco.
15 SENATOR DeFRANCISCO: Yes, I just
16 wanted to mention very briefly that I'm going
17 to vote yes on this budget, and there were a
18 couple of comments made earlier that I wanted
19 to respond to.
20 First of all, there was a comment
21 made that it was the Republicans in the Senate
22 that required these prisons to stay open. I

23 was on the Joint Committee for Public
24 Protection, and there was a debate, a very
25 good debate, a very comprehensive debate. And

(518) 371-8910
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1 the decision by both the Democrats and the
2 Republicans from the Senate and the
3 Republicans and Democrats from the Assembly
4 was basically that it was not a wise idea to
5 close the prisons without a comprehensive
6 study done to determine long-range use and
7 needs of the prison system.
8 So I think that was a reasonable
9 determination, rather than cutting prisons
10 just because it's a budgetary issue. So I
11 think there was a bipartisan effort on that
12 part.
13 And lastly, with respect to the
14 comment that was made that we don't have
15 enough money for our schools but we've got
16 money to have prisons open, it's recently been
17 reported that the State of New York is
18 65 percent over the national median in aid to
19 education and number one as far as the amount
20 spent per child in education.
21 So, you know, we can be maybe
22 embarrassed about some things we do, but to
23 suggest that we are not keeping up a
24 reasonable amount of education per pupil I
25 don't think is a fair comparison. And in any

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1 event, it has nothing to do with whether to
2 open or close prisons. Those are issues that
3 should be done as a matter of policy and
4 study.
5 I vote aye.
7 DeFrancisco will be recorded in the
8 affirmative.
9 Senator Hassell-Thompson, to
10 explain her vote.
11 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Yes,
12 just very briefly. Thank you, Mr. President.
13 This morning I talked about one of
14 the legislative initiatives that was put
15 forward, and I voted no for it because of the
16 direction that it and other bills like it
17 seemed to be taking in this chamber.
18 And while I think that there are
19 many aspects of this budget that I certainly
20 can endorse and am very appreciative of, I too
21 believe that in light of these numbers that I
22 think that Senator Nozzolio quoted earlier,
23 the way crime has been reduced and the
24 policies he gives this chamber credit for
25 instigating, somehow that's not consistent

(518) 371-8910
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1 with the fact that we want to keep prisons

2 open.
3 If there are no prisoners, why are
4 we keeping the prisons open? If we've been as
5 tough on crime as many of my colleagues have
6 said, then the numbers of people going to jail
7 certainly has been reduced. I know that's
8 tongue in cheek, intentionally. The reality
9 is, however, we should not be spending money
10 to keep prisons open.
11 And whether or not we're spending
12 more money in the State of New York than any
13 other state, I applaud the state. I applaud
14 the state because, number one, we have some of
15 the most significant populations of people
16 with the greatest need that come to the State
17 of New York, and they have a right to expect
18 that those needs will be met educationally.
19 So I applaud us for finally taking the major
20 steps that we need to begin to take to talk
21 about education.
22 But I still don't think that when
23 we talk about prisons that we should be
24 comparing the dollars that we put in prisons
25 with the dollars that we put in education. I

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1117
1 think we need to be comparing apples with
2 apples. And the apples are that we need to be
3 doing more alternatives, we ought to be using
4 the lowered numbers of prisoners in our

5 facilities to look at reuse for some of these
6 facilities. We talk about the fact that we
7 have AIDS and HIV in prison and we have no
8 facilities to put them. We should be using
9 them as treatment centers.
10 We have a rare opportunity to do
11 some extraordinary things in the State of
12 New York. And I repeat myself again: When we
13 become more creative and stop throwing money
14 at things and thinking that giving a few
15 dollars and giving a few jobs is what's really
16 important, we need to be retrofitting the
17 people that are in these jobs so that they can
18 do the work of the people of the State of
19 New York based on what is needed, not based on
20 what's expedient.
23 Hassell-Thompson will be recorded in the
24 negative.
25 Senator Montgomery, to explain her

(518) 371-8910
1118
1 vote.
3 Mr. President, briefly.
4 I just want to, in carrying further
5 the issue that was raised by my colleague
6 Senator Hassell-Thompson, I certainly -- there
7 are some parts of the budget that I am very

8 appreciative of. I'm very happy that the
9 Governor has recommended that we establish a
10 way of dealing with people who violate parole,
11 especially the technical parole violators.
12 I don't know if you realize, but
13 the largest percent of people who are returned
14 to prison are coming in there for technical
15 violations. Which means they did not commit
16 another crime, they had a technicality breach.
17 And so we're looking for a different way of
18 dealing with that, and I'm thankful for that.
19 And there are some other positive aspects.
20 But I must say that it's very
21 shameful and embarrassing and disgraceful for
22 a state as wealthy as ours to have a system
23 that part of our state that relies so heavily
24 on this incarceration program. I think that
25 other parts of the world look at us and we

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1 should be absolutely ashamed of this.
2 And most of those people who are
3 incarcerated are black and brown, over
4 80 percent of them. Isn't that disgraceful,
5 Mr. President?
6 We cannot allow our state to
7 continue to represent this reprehensible
8 situation. We need an economy that is based
9 on progress, based on our wonderful university
10 system, that should be the engine for creating

11 new opportunities for young people so that our
12 young people don't abandon the upstate regions
13 of our state.
14 We need to have a system where our
15 economy drives our business and that we don't
16 rely on the incarceration, the penitentiary
17 system to carry the region of our state, and
18 that that penitentiary system relies on mining
19 communities like mine of black and brown
20 people so that can you continue to claim that
21 you have an economy upstate. This is
22 disgraceful.
23 And so I'm voting against this not
24 because of the positive things in it -- I wish
25 I could -- but I must make a statement that I

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1 do not agree with this direction. We need
2 to -- if we could save $10 million closing
3 down those facilities, I would be happy to see
4 that $10 million used as a way of looking at
5 where can we go to move our state away from
6 this horrible program that we have to fight
7 every year to keep prisons open because our
8 communities are going to shut down because
9 they don't have jobs and the only jobs that
10 they have that we have to offer are prisons.
11 So I'm against that. We need to do
12 something different. The Governor has tried
13 to move us in that direction. All of us in

14 this room should be willing to take a step
15 away from these prisons as a means of making
16 our economy work.
17 I'm voting no, Mr. President.
19 Montgomery will be recorded in the negative.
20 Seeing no other Senator wishing to
21 explain his vote, the clerk will announce the
22 results.
25 Senators Adams, Hassell-Thompson, Huntley,

(518) 371-8910
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1 L. Krueger, Montgomery, Parker, Perkins and
2 Schneiderman.
5 bill is passed.
6 Senator Skelos.
8 is there any other business at the desk?
9 ACTING PRESIDENT ROBACH: There
10 is none.
11 SENATOR SKELOS: There being
12 none, I move we stand adjourned until
13 Thursday, April 3rd, at 1:00 p.m.
15 Senate will stand adjourned until Thursday,
16 April 3rd, at 1:00 p.m.

17 (Whereupon, at 6:53 p.m., the
18 Senate adjourned.)
19
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(518) 371-8910

April 2, 2008

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1 NEW YORK STATE SENATE

4 THE STENOGRAPHIC RECORD

9 ALBANY, NEW YORK

18 SENATOR THOMAS P. MORAHAN, Acting President

19 STEVEN M. BOGGESS, Secretary

Candyco Transcription Service, Inc.

2 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The

3 Senate will come to order.

4 I ask everyone present to please

5 rise and join me in pledging allegiance to our

7 (Whereupon, the assemblage recited

8 the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)

9 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: In the

10 absence of clergy, we'll we bow our heads in a

12 (Whereupon, the assemblage

13 respected a moment of silence.)

14 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The

15 reading of the Journal.

16 THE SECRETARY: In Senate,

17 Tuesday, April 1, the Senate met pursuant to

18 adjournment. The Journal of Monday, March 31,

19 was read and approved. On motion, Senate

21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:

22 Without objection, the Journal stands approved

25 Messages from the Assembly.

1 Messages from the Governor.

2 Reports of standing committees.

3 Reports of select committees.

4 Communications and reports from

6 Motions and resolutions.

8 SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President,

9 if we could go to the noncontroversial reading

11 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The

12 Secretary will read.

13 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number

14 325, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 6747, an

15 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law and

16 others, in relation to enacting the "Child

17 Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Act of 2008."

18 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read

19 the last section.

20 THE SECRETARY: Section 59. This

21 act shall take effect on the first of

23 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call

25 (The Secretary called the roll.)

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1 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:

3 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 41.

4 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: The

6 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number

7 399, by Senator Nozzolio, Senate Print 6908,

8 an act to amend the Executive Law, in relation

9 to directing the Division of Parole.

10 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Read

11 the last section.

12 THE SECRETARY: Section 5. This

13 act shall take effect immediately.

14 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: Call

16 (The Secretary called the roll.)

17 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN:

19 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you,

21 ACTING PRESIDENT MORAHAN: To