Public Safety

Thousands of children across the City suffer from chronic health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, sickle cell anemia, and poor dental or vision care. The City should fund a Health Coordinator in low-income school districts to oversee a team of case managers to work in schools, linking uninsured children and children with chronic illnesses to doctors and other appropriate pediatric resources. Health Coordinators and their staff would also track sick days and new sicknesses, catching problems before they become bigger. By placing information online, and having a phone number to call, the Health Coordinator program would be a place where parents can learn about new threats to their children’s health, such as this year’s Swine Flu, and public health officials can better study trends in children's sicknesses.

Transgender individuals must be able to live with the same freedoms as the non-transgendered without fear of accusal for fraud, harassment, discrimination or rejection for showing identification which displays a gender other than the one they display. In order to avoid such discrimination, we should allow transgender individuals to change the sex on their birth certificate or other standard forms of identification without undergoing sex reassignment surgery, while ensuring that people who wish to conceal their identity cannot take advantage of such a program.

Youth Courts place young offenders in front of people of their own age who decide how offenders will repay the community and their victims. Youth Courts have been shown to be more effective at reducing recidivism than traditional punishment. Red Hook’s youth court, for example, hears an average of 139 cases each year, and more than 90 percent of those who go before the court complete their sanctions -- such as community service, workshops, essays and letters of apology -- as ordered. Crime in Red Hook generally has fallen faster than other neighborhoods in the City and the murder rate has fallen to zero there for several years. Youth courts also teach young people about the justice system, encouraging many to work towards joining a profession in the field. Let’s expand on the success of Youth Courts in New York and create more of them.