Nassau juvenile justice system gets $729G

Nassau County has garnered $729,000 in state and federal grants to help reform its juvenile justice system, with an emphasis on keeping more young offenders from being locked up and entering the state's penal system, County Executive Edward Mangano announced Tuesday.

"These efforts will not only save Nassau County taxpayers money but will also give our highest-risk juveniles the resources they need in order to lead successful lives," Mangano said in a news release.

The funds will pay for job training and other programs for juveniles under age 16. Mangano said the long-term goal is to keep juveniles out of the court system and their records sealed.

"This is great," said Mel Jackson, head of the Leadership Training Institute in Hempstead, which has been providing alternative services to juvenile offenders for decades in cooperation with the county and the state. "It is a much-needed expansion of such services."

Officials at the county probation department, which has primary responsibility for juvenile justice, said 750 youths under the age of 16 were arrested in Nassau last year and 80 percent of them were released to their families and referred for services through Family Probation Intake.

Half of those released were successfully diverted, they said, while the rest were either placed on probation or in a residential facility. Eighty-five percent of those in residential facilities, they added, usually are arrested again within three years.

John Fowle, Nassau's probation chief, said some of the grant money will pay for alternatives to incarceration -- such as electronic monitoring -- for some probation violations, instead of sending a violator to an upstate facility.