NYC Children's Services Close to Home Program Announces Responses to DOI Probe

New York City's Close to Home initiative for juvenile delinquents increased its staff and ramped up surveillance in the past few months in the aftermath of a rape and robbery last June of a 33-year-old woman by three boys enrolled in the program.

Felipe Franco, deputy commissioner of the Division of Youth and Family Justice of the New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS), said at a City Council meeting Monday afternoon that the program has taken into account recommendations from the DOI and the NYPD after the incident last June, Franco said.

Want more New York City news? Sign up for Patch’s free daily newsletter and breaking news alerts.

Close to Home, established in 2012, puts children ages 7 to 15 who have committed crimes in facilities near their families and communities in an effort to reduce the rate of recidivism. The boys who raped and robbed the woman in Chinatown were being housed in the Boys Town facility in Brooklyn, snuck out of the building, which had no working alarm, and residence staff failed to notice their escape. Close to Home has since terminated all contracts with Boys Town, it said.

The 25 agencies that house the 159 students in the ASC program are now required to report their census count from once a day to six times per day, Franco said. Providers are also now required to conduct weekly reviews of video footage of the children. There are videocameras in each common room of each provider, but they may be expanded to the outside of some buildings, according to Franco.

City Council member Barry S. Grodenchik (D-23rd District) brought up concerns about nine students out of the 159 in the program being currently "AWOL," which means their whereabouts are unknown.

"That's 6 percent of the children missing," he said. "This is a serious matter."

The ACS said in its briefing that it had assigned six former NYPD detectives specifically to uncover the children who had gone missing.

Image from DCPI