New Children’s Library, District Attorney’s Public Service Fellowship Program, And West Indian Day Celebration

(From left to right): Glenn Steinberg, of the Brooke Jackman Foundation; Ama Dwimoh, Chief of Crimes Against Children Bureau; Erin Jackman, Brooke Jackman's sister and Founder of Brooke Jackman Foundation; and Osei Van  Horne, of the Books for Kids Foundation.

Many of us sometimes enjoy an escape from reality by burying our nose in a good book.  Often we imagine a place where we are safe, where we are heroes and where dreams do come true.  This is especially true for abused children.  When I was a child, my favorite books were Pinocchio and Gulliver’s Travels.  I firmly believe children should take an interest in reading at an early age and so I wanted to provide a resource in my office where they could enjoy good books that open new worlds to them.  To that end, this month, we opened the Brooke Jackman Literary Center and Children’s Library in our Crimes Against Children Bureau. 

The Crimes Against Children Bureau does more than prosecute those who abuse our children.  The staff does whatever they can to improve the lives of the children who come through their office.  The new library provides a safe and welcoming environment for these child crime victims to read and to open their imaginations.  It fosters a love of reading for the children and provides an escape from the violence that they have been forced to endure.  The library has tons of books and other materials, much of which was provided by the Books for Kids Foundation and the Brooke Jackman Foundation.  The library is also equipped with comfortable chairs and rugs, listening centers, motivational posters and decorations.  The walls of the library were painted by DidiArt Angels, a non-profit group of local artists. 

Ama Dwimoh, Chief of the Crimes Against Children Bureau represented our office at the official ribbon-cutting ceremony.  I believe it is important to not only keep our children safe, but to educate them, and providing them with books is essential to helping them reach their potential.  This library will be a haven for child crime victims, in the same way that a similar library, also donated by the Books for Kids Foundation, serves the children of domestic violence victims in our Family Justice Center.

Brooke Jackman died in the 9/11 tragedy, and her sister Erin founded the organization in her honor to embody Brooke’s spirit, her love for reading and her desire to help children in need.  The Foundation’s goal is to bring a sense of value, joy and hope to all its participants.  They have started literacy programs encouraging children to become strong readers, and promoting children and their parents to read aloud together each night with books that they provide them.  This is the second library the Books for Kids Foundation has opened in my office.  I thank them for their generosity.

Kings County District Attorney’s
Public Service Fellowship Program
 

It is no secret these are tough times for young lawyers looking for work.  There are many intelligent, qualified recent graduates looking for jobs, some of whom graduated at the top of their class from some of the best law schools in the country.  In some cases, some of NYC’s top law firms will hire first-year attorneys but they either don’t have enough work for them to do or they don’t have the funds to give them a full-time salary.  The law firms’ dilemma is that they do not want to lose these top applicants. In most cases, they would have to push back the attorneys’ start dates for at least a year, so we have come up with a solution that serves the firms and the people of Brooklyn.  My office has introduced the Kings County District Attorney’s Public Service Fellowship Program, the first of its kind in the city.  Some of NYC’s top law firms including Dewey & LeBoeuf, Morgan Lewis, Clifford Chance and Skadden Arps, will loan the District Attoney’s Office some of their newly hired, first-year attorneys for a minimum of one year, and these attorneys will get experience in criminal law.

The District Attorney’s Office has 35 participants in this program, five of which started earlier this past summer.  The other 30 were welcomed on September 22^nd at a breakfast ceremony and began their two-week training.  After the two-week training, where the participants will learn everything from trying misdemeanor cases to interviewing witnesses, writing up complaints and handling arraignments, they will then be assigned to various bureaus throughout the office, including the Trial Zone Bureaus, Domestic Violence, Sex Crimes and our School Advocacy Bureau.  They will receive an irreplaceable education here and more hands-on experience than they are likely to get at any law firm during their first year out of law school.  They will be spending at least two days a week in the courtroom which is very rare for junior associates in their first couple of years at a law firm.  This is a win, win for all involved. 

West Indian Labor Day Celebration

On Monday, September 7^th, I was joined by several members of my staff and thousands of people from the community, as we marched down Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, for the 2009 West Indian Labor Day celebration.  The 42^nd annual parade was a spectacle of marchers in colorful costumes, reggae and calypso music, native food, over 70 floats, and crowds of people waving flags from Trinidad, Barbados, Grenada and other Caribbean nations in a joyful demonstration of ethnic heritage and cultural pride. 

The Grand Marshals for 2009 were: New York State Governor David A. Paterson; General Colin L. Powell (Ret); Mark Cornell, CEO-Moet Hennessy USA; Hon.Yvette D. Clarke, US Congresswoman; NY Senator John Sampson and NYPD Chief Joseph J. Esposito.  The lead event for the parade festivities was a VIP Awards Breakfast for sponsors and Grand Marshals, followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Utica Avenue & Eastern Parkway.
 

The news articles below may be of interest to you or members of your community. 

The Seattle Times

Ex-Justice O'Connor: Electing Judges Puts Courts At Risk

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor believes Washington and other states need to completely overhaul the way that state and local judges are selected for the bench.

O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the nation's highest court, told a Seattle audience Monday that because lower-level judges are elected they are not immune from potentially being swayed by campaign contributors. In Washington, as in about two dozen other states, judicial positions from state Supreme Court justice to municipal judge are elected positions.

"How we choose our state judges and how we decide whether to keep them in office or not is of critical importance," O'Connor said during a Seattle University School of Law conference. "We are now facing greater threats to judicial independence than we did in the past."

O'Connor said the threat to judicial independence is from corporations, attorneys and other interest groups that donate to campaigns with the hope of obtaining favorable rulings from the judge after the election.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2009866692_justice15m.html

The Washington Post

Shedding the Stigma of Prison

Cultural, Personal Changes Will Help Ex-Inmates Find Redemptive Place in Society, Advocates Say

“If, in fact, we are sincere about helping someone transform themselves from a situation of stigma to one of acceptance, there needs to be a change in language used to describe them,” said Badi Foster, president of Phelps Stokes, the nearly century-old District-based foundation that recently launched an initiative called the Homecomers’ Academy, aimed at addressing reentry issues and changing stereotypes about former offenders. “Instead of defining themselves by their deficits, many are redefining their statuses as lifelong learners.”

As many as 60,000 D.C. residents -- one in 10 -- are felons, 15,000 of them under court supervision. Two-thirds are rearrested within three years. Forty percent are sent back to prison.

Legislators at the national and local levels regularly introduce so-called second chance legislation to expunge nonviolent crimes and ensure that ex-offenders are not permanently discriminated against. But Carnegie Mellon University is scouring empirical evidence regarding ex-offenders to discover how long it takes -- if it can be determined -- for them to be redeemed, or deemed harmless to society. The preliminary results of the study, highlighted in the May issue of Criminology, show that a person’s criminal record, depending on the crimes, could indeed become irrelevant after a certain number of years. Led by Alfred Blumstein and doctoral student Kiminori Nakamura, the study could help employers conduct background checks on ex-offenders with a better understanding of the risk involved.

www.brooklynda.org

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