For Their Own Good

That’s because diverting a juvenile takes careful work. To put the brakes on prosecution, Probation needs to get the consent of the police officer, victim or other party involved in bringing the case. Under Horn’s direction, the agency is now making an effort to track those parties down and secure their cooperation--and in the second half of last year, diversion increased to 23 percent. “We think we can do better yet,” says Horn.

The probation department has also taken another look at the process by which probation officers make sentencing recommendations to the court. Officers used to mostly go with their gut. But recently, Probation asked Vera to create a “probation assessment instrument”--an analysis officers use to evaluate the needs of youngsters as well as the strengths of their families. The process “reserves a recommendation of placement for the most severely disadvantaged kids,” says Horn. In the last 18 months, the probation department has gone from recommending placement in 50 percent of cases to seeking placement in only 35 percent of cases.

Lest anyone think that the man in charge of New York’s prisons and probation is soft on crime, Horn knows how to frame the issue. “I’m a fiscal conservative,” he says. “I believe that taxpayer dollars belong to taxpayers. When I look at what we spend on placement and what we get for it, it offends me.”