Gov. Kathy Hochul's budget proposal maintains a landmark criminal justice law — heading off concerns she'd make changes that result in more teens being charged as adults, and avoiding a fight with her party's progressives in this year's re-election race.
Hochul had hinted she was open to changing parts of the law that increased the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18 after sustained lobbying from prosecutors, police and law enforcement groups. The governor has previously used the budget process to pare back the state’s criminal justice laws.
“ This is just a fight that didn't need to happen, frankly,” said Basil Smikle, a Columbia University professor and political analyst.
Smikle said criminal justice issues are a “dividing line” in the state’s Democratic Party and would have reopened old wounds before an important election.
That dividing line was on full display when a coalition of more than 200 advocacy organizations and state lawmakers warned Hochul they’d fight any backpedaling of the Raise the Age law.
“We’ve learned from other battles around criminal legal systems reform that the minute you take your foot off the pedal, bad things can happen,” said Megan French-Marcelin, a senior policy director with the Legal Action Center.
It appears Hochul got the message. Her budget proposal released on Tuesday does not include any changes to the Raise the Age law’s key elements.
The confrontation would have also revived rifts in the Democratic majorities that control the state Legislature. Leaders in the state Senate and Assembly had signaled their support of the law in its current form — and praised Hochul after she decided not to pursue any rollbacks.
Speaking to reporters after Hochul’s budget speech, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said the governor’s decision to avoid changing Raise the Age would be “helpful” to the whole budget process.
“ Policy proposals that are very intense generally take a long time to sort out,” she said.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie agreed. “ I still believe young people's brains are not fully developed at 16 or 17,” he said.
Hochul said she didn’t feel the need to revisit criminal justice legislation this year, after scaling back laws restricting the use of cash bail and evidentiary deadlines for accused criminals in past budgets.
“We have already dealt with many criminal justice reforms that others didn't think we'd be able to accomplish,” she told reporters after her speech. “So I don't need to revisit the same reforms, we got them done.”
Rensselaer County District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly criticized Hochul’s claim that necessary reform of the law had already been done.
“ I was very frustrated by that,” said Donnelly, who’s also the president of the New York District Attorneys Association.
Donnelly said her organization is pushing for targeted revisions of the law, not a full repeal. It’s looking to move more juvenile gun possession cases back into criminal court, and give prosecutors more access to sealed family court case records.
“ We are seeing 16- and 17-year-olds who are being sent to family court for what we consider to be serious crimes, and we are not seeing that they are getting the proper rehabilitation that the law intended,” she said.
Until 2017, New York was one of just two states that automatically charged 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. Support for Raise the Age grew following the suicide of Kalief Browder, who was arrested at 16 on charges of stealing a backpack and spent three years at Rikers Island awaiting trial.
Advocates point to data showing that the overall youth crime rate has declined since Raise the Age passed. They argue those numbers could fall further with more funding for community-based programs, counseling and wraparound services.
While the law set aside about $1.7 billion for these programs, more than half remains unspent, according to the state comptroller’s office.
“Raise the Age is not the problem,” said Jason Rodriguez, a policy research associate with the Legal Action Center who spent 24 years incarcerated. “The problem is that the funding is not reaching these young people where they need the help.”
Rodriguez and other advocates fear threats to the Raise the Age law could re-emerge after the November election. If so, they say they’ll be ready to fight.
“ We’re still in 2026 having a conversation about whether children should be locked up with adults and whether resources that were promised to them should be allotted,” said Messiah Ramkissoon, an associate executive director with the Youth Justice Network. “We're not as far along as we should be.”
