This program is a production of WAMC News and is made possible with funds provided by the State University of New York College at Newport.
From Albany, this is the legislative gazette, a weekly news magazine examining the activities of state government.
Your host is political scientist and syndicated columnist, Dr. Alan Chartock of the State University.
In this edition of the Legislative Gazette, we'll hear about what is sure to be one of the most controversial issues facing the legislature this year, sentencing reform.
We'll talk with Senator Mary Goodhue and get the latest reading on Governor Cuomo's performance in office.
The criminal justice system has been criticized for being unfair. For example, a black man in New York City and a white woman in Albany are convicted of exactly the same crime.
They have the same backgrounds and circumstances, but the black man gets it tougher sentence. In 1983, Governor Cuomo created the New York State Committee on sentencing guidelines with the goal of creating a more equitable criminal justice system.
After one year of work, the committee this week presented its preliminary report to a joint legislative committee.
Rick Lepp Kasky reports, the goal of the commission, a tough task, create a criminal sentencing system where two people convicted of the same crime with similar criminal records would receive the same sentence.
Currently, New York State operates under an indeterminate sentencing system, where the sentencing is largely left up to the discretion of a judge.
The sentencing commission is drafting the outline for a determinate sentencing system, where sentences for particular crimes would be mandated by state statute.
Only a small percentage of offenders currently serve their entire sentence in prison. Under the system, the committee is proposing, if an offender is sentenced 15 years in prison, he would serve 15 years minus only specified reductions for good behavior.
The sentencing committee, through a complicated formula using figures provided by the State Department of Corrections, ranked crimes according to their severity, and established a sentence ranged based on the violators' previous criminal record.
The end result, tougher sentences for major felonies and lesser sentences for lesser felonies.
The chairman of the New York State Committee on sentencing guidelines, Joseph Bellacosa, says a determinant sentencing scheme would not cure the problem of crime, but he sees it as a very important part of an overall solution.
The relatively greater certainty of the amounts of punishment that would be imposed upon criminals will have a beneficial effect on all concerns.
The defendants, the victims, society, large, and the institutional components, all of them that have to deal with this massive problem in our society.
Although on the surface, the commission's recommendations appear to serve the needs of the public who may have lost faith in our criminal justice system, but look a little deeper, and there are definite issues that should be raised.
For example, other states that have implemented a determinant sentencing system, Minnesota, for example, have experienced a dramatic increase in their prison populations.
New York's prisons are already filled 116 percent of capacity. Although committee chairman Bellacosa claims prison populations will not rise more than is already predicted, Van Zweisen of the New York State Coalition for Criminal Justice claims a determinant sentencing scheme would balloon New York's prison population.
In addition, Zweisen says the committee's report fails to include the state's top criminal justice priorities, like reducing prison overcrowding and the implementation of alternatives to incarceration programs.
The public, as well as everyone in government, is interested in crime control and crime reduction.
We had an opportunity to build in the rest of the state's system alternatives to incarceration that the governor has been pushing for.
A rational look at prison overcrowding, presumptive parole legislation, prison capping, all these things have been completely missed.
We're going to see the usual sort of tough on crime debate, and even as Mr. Bellacosa said, sentencing reform has no relation to crime control.
When the legislature debated whether to create the sentencing commission in 1983, many thought it would result in longer and stricter sentencing, a get tough approach to dealing with criminals.
Assemblyman Dove-Huykind of Brooklyn claims the public has lost faith in our criminal justice system, and he was expecting recommendations that would restore the public's faith in the way the system deals with murderers, rapists, etc.
But Huykind says the report he was handed did not do that.
I think the perception is when people read about this, and they use the word determine and sentencing, I think the perception of the average person is, oh, we're finally going to clean up a situation that is very bad, and that is that one person gets arrested for particular crime and another person for a similar type of crime, and they receive totally different kinds of sentences.
This commission is finally going to present recommendations which we're going to adopt and we're going to deal with the problem.
The judge who's the chairman of the commission made it pretty clear today that no one is going to serve longer in prison overall, and one of my colleagues raised a specific example of the second degree murder and under questioning, the chairman of this commission admitted that the person might be dead.
And that's what I believe is committed that the person might actually end up in jail for a short period of time.
Under our current sentencing system, the judge plays a major role in determining what penalty one should receive for one's crime.
But under the determinant sentencing scheme, the judge's role in sentencing would be minimal.
Arnold Praschkin is a freshman assemblyman from Colony and is a former Albany County judge at District Attorney.
He says determinant sentencing would virtually eliminate the discretion of judges.
Something he says is an integral part of our criminal justice system.
My problem is that the concept of saying that a judge should be like an IBM computer and say, well, you must go, this certain number will say.
I'll be totally against it.
It seems that this is going to be everyone's going to be opposed to this.
This is going everyone's ox.
I feel that the, there has to be a balance that has to be weighed.
But I know that for instance Albany County has done very well.
This goes back to 68 when I was District Attorney.
And I think we've done very well in so far as meeting out property in just sentences.
Maybe more severe than New York County, but that's somebody else's problem.
The closer that they get to taking the discretion away from the judges and the prosecutors, the more violently opposed they would be.
The report presented to the Legislators this past week is just a preliminary report.
The New York State Committee on Sentencing Guidelines will now hold a series of public hearings in Albany, Buffalo and New York City.
Then we'll draft a final report which will be presented to the legislature on or before April 1st.
In Albany, I'm Rick Lepp Kowski.
The latest public opinion poll by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion was released this week.
With a look at some of the highlights, here's the man who directs the institute, Lee Marringoff.
Marios Cuomo's popularity remains at the top of the charts according to a survey conducted by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.
This was the main finding of what we released this week in Albany.
The poll of New York State voters, 602 of them, was taken in the evening following the governor's state of the state address.
People were selected at random and interviewed by telephone throughout New York State, and they served represent a microcosm of the state itself.
They liked the way Governor Cuomo's handling his job, and they wanted him to seek re-election of Governor in 1986.
A full 64% of the respondents gave the governor either a good or an excellent rating.
This is essentially unchanged from the similar poll we conducted in September. His approval rating is up five points since a year ago.
There are several interesting factors contributing to his popularity.
First, 72% of the Democrats gave Governor Cuomo a favorable rating. That's not terribly surprising, but a full 57% of the Republicans also proved the job he's doing.
That demonstrates more than anything else, I think, the wide appeal the governor has established in his two years as chief executive in New York State.
Second, 65% of the city voters gave him a positive vote of support. Again, that's no great surprise, but 60% of the upstaters and 72% of suburban residents, rate him either as excellent or good.
That means that Mario Cuomo's doing very well in no sections of New York State were Democrats typically do poorly.
In the suburbs of the swing area in New York State and the area where Ronald Reagan racked up the hugeest pluralities, Governor Cuomo's strong showing is particularly noteworthy.
After all, Democrats are searching for leaders with appeal to higher income younger professional voters, and Governor Cuomo seems to have a good hand on how to appeal to those individuals.
I suggest two reasons to help explain this unusual phenomenon.
Governor Cuomo's brand of what he calls progressive pragmatism successfully blends a traditional appeal for social awareness with what is viewed as found fiscal policies by these voters.
Also, the suburban voters may not be quite as conservative as recent elections have suggested. On issues such as environmental protection, aid to senior citizens, and discrimination against minorities, there's a close match between what the governor is stressing and what surveys show these citizens desire.
Finally, Governor Cuomo has been able to present himself in a national way without sacrificing his appeal statewide.
73% believe he's a good leader for New York State.
Two thirds of the sample believe he takes clearly to find positions on issues, and almost 60% believe he's fulfilling campaign promises.
Only 36% believe he's paying too much attention to national politics and not enough attention to New York State.
If the governor compiles a successful legislative record this session and further concretizes his philosophy and develops a track record of programs and policies, then it's likely that his midterm report card will remain untarnished as the governor approaches his reelection effort.
Already 65% of the state voters want him to seek reelection as governor in two years.
In the next few weeks, I'll be reporting on the legislative agenda and what the public thinks on a variety of issues facing this session.
In the meantime, for the legislative gazette, this is Lee Marangoff at the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion and Piquet Sey.
And now, speaking of popularity, here's the ever-popular, ever-present, ever-challenging Frederick U. Dicker of the New York Post.
You've heard it here first, but I don't expect a whole lot of credit for pressions.
If, as we all expect, Governor Cuomo's six-re-election next year, he'll win easily and overwhelmingly.
The simple truth is that the Republican Party in this state doesn't have anyone of statute to challenge Governor Cuomo.
And unlike 1982, when Cuomo first ran for office as governor, and out of the blue big money candidate, like Lou Lerman, just won't have what it takes as a feat to governor at this time.
If there was any further need for proof of Cuomo's incredible popularity with the voters, it came last week from the Marist Institute for Public Opinion and Piquet Sey.
The Well-Regard Institute produced a poll of 602 New Yorkers selected at random and balanced by geographical region and religion, and most importantly by political affiliation.
The poll showed that Cuomo enjoyed a good or excellent rating from 64% of the voters.
A figure that, according to previous Marist polls, has remained almost constant for more than a year.
Most importantly, the poll showed Cuomo winning the backing of a majority of self-described Republican Van Conservatives.
A message of certain political death to any would-be Republican challenger.
Indeed, George Clark, the able of sometimes strident voice of New York Republicans, appeared flabbergasted by the poll as a result.
I don't understand, said Clark, who is the state Republican chairman, how conservatives can say that Cuomo is a conservative, and liberals can say that Cuomo is a liberal.
It may be that the governor is a consummate politician. He's doing something right as a politician, although I'm not sure he's doing things right being governor.
Clark, who's been scouting the state for months from potential opponents to Cuomo, certainly has his work cut out for him.
His party's few statewide luminaries, like St. Comptroller, Ned Regan, and Senator Majority Leader Warren Anderson, give no indication whatsoever that they're interested in challenging the governor next year.
One name that's surfaced recently was that of Manhattan State Republican Senator Roy Goodman, a millionaire who ran for New York City Mayor several years ago.
But in that contest, he won, as you can believe it, only about a five percent of the vote.
The fact that a politician with such a poor track record can be treated as a serious potential Republican challenger just illustrates how desperate the Republicans are.
Why is Cuomo as popular as he is?
There's no question that the governor is great eloquence and charm, which at times crosses the border into genuine charisma, is largely responsible for his success.
Certainly, his record is governor to date, can't account for his remarkable achievement.
What I find really interesting now, however, is an implicit recognition from Cuomo that his substantive record is governor is probably the weakest suit in his political deck of cards.
Thus, the state of the state message earlier this month, and the budget he'll outline on Tuesday, appears geared in large part to fill in that gaping hole in his tenure as governor.
It seems certain that Cuomo will come away from this legislative session with the one accomplishment politician's prize overall, a substantial tax cut for the voters.
And to that his efforts to reform state fiscal practices, increase the number of middle and lower class housing units, and boost welfare payments for the poor, and you have a genuine record of accomplishment.
If it's well-known impossible to beat Cuomo now, think of how tough it will be for the Republicans next year.
Trying to stay attuned at the Capitol, this is Fred Dicker of the New York Post.
Most members of the legislature head into the session with at least one major issue on their personal agendas.
For some, it's energy for others the environment. For a Republican state senator Mary Goodhue of Mount Kiscoe, children and children's issues are high on the agenda.
Senator, in your capacity as chairperson of the Senate Child Care Committee, what are your major interests this year?
Well, this year we're awfully interested in doing something about child abuse.
You remember the incident in New York City and we've had something interesting, I'm sure there are plenty of them around the state.
Nobody has approached the problem and I'm talking now about child abuse in daycare centers.
And there's just lots to be do to be done.
How carefully you have to be about the people that work in these centers.
In the past we haven't been very careful, there's very low paying jobs.
Nobody finds out whether they have criminal records. Nobody finds out whether they may have been guilty of child abuse in some other institution or other capacity.
It's really a shocking situation and I think that we've got a high priority to protect the children that go to these daycare centers from child abuse.
The mothers have enough to worry about as it is, they've got to work and they need to think that their children are properly taken care of.
Senator, how are you going to do it?
Well, what we're looking into is the kind of people that are employed in child care centers.
We're looking at such things as requiring that their criminal records be searched.
Now civil liberties, people are going to get upset by that.
We have a child registry in this state which records complaints of child abuse.
We've already mandated that that registry should be checked for people hiring daycare workers.
Primarily, I think probably we're going to have to lift the level of the job itself.
We're going to have to pay more, we're going to have to insist on more requirements to be a child care worker.
Which is too bad because it'll make daycare more expensive.
Yes, I was just going to ask you about that. That's the downside of things.
So now, somebody who wants to put together a child care center in a neighborhood, for example, starts getting so many levels of bureaucracy and bureaucratic requirements put on them because of the exception.
The jerk who does the child more station, that sort of thing, that it almost becomes prohibitive in terms of starting something like this up isn't that a concern?
You've put your finger right on the problem.
The more requirements we make, the more we insist that these people be paid, the more degrees we insist they have from schools and colleges, the more expensive.
The care gets, whether it gets any better, or who knows.
So that's the problem. What we're trying to do is protect the children without making the cost prohibitive, without being ridiculous about it, without going overboard.
But at the same time, they absolutely certain that the children are protected.
How and something like that work. I mean, what you've done is I give us a very good general outline now.
Now, specifically, how do we achieve a balance of that kind?
Well, you've got to get the right laws, which is what we're working on.
One of the things we're looking to, is this new bill that we passed last year, which I sponsored in the Senate, which is called the Latch Key Children Bill.
As you, of course, know a Latch Key child is a child, old enough to go to school, it's not an infant, and it comes home from school and has its own key and goes into the house of the apartment.
But there's nobody there.
How old are we talking about now?
Well, I suppose we could be talking about eight years old.
Certainly, 12 and 13-year-olds.
And there's nobody there because the parents are both working and they don't get home when the schools get out.
So we passed the bill last year suggesting that the school facilities be used for after-school daycare and putting some seat money in so that daycare programs could start up at school.
This is not to be at the burden of the school taxpayer, but these would be daycare people financed in their own way that would come into the schools.
So the schools are going to ask you for that money?
All over the place.
I mean, with this response has been unbelievable.
The application, Holly Week goes by, and I don't get two or three calls saying, how do we apply for some of that money we want to start and after-school daycare facility.
I have a feeling that this will take a little bit of the load off of some of our other daycare facilities.
And might help the child abuse situation because I don't see child abuse going on in a school building with children this age.
I could be wrong, but I just don't see it.
Well, the other side of that, of course, is everyone's in a rally some sensational story about some teacher up here recently, a principal who was a report to Gibson-Varald and some kind of child molestation.
But I suppose that's just an nature of a beast.
For every thousand people is going to be somebody else?
I suppose.
And as you suggested earlier, quite correctly, I think a mass-dust degree doesn't really deal with that kind of impairment.
No, it doesn't.
And you have to be very careful because as you say, there will be a lot of allegations flying around that may not have any truth in the middle.
I'm particularly suspicious of allegations between parents that used to be married.
And the divorce wife says that every time she sends a child to visit, visitation rights with the divorce husband, that there has been sexual abuse on the part of the husband.
I think you've got to take a lot of these complaints with the grain of salt.
On the other hand, the more complaints you take with the grain of salt, the next thing you know, some kid is seriously injured.
That's right, Senator.
I agree with everything you just said.
I ask you go on to another bill that I'm interested in and that is how you make fathers who run out on their families pay up.
No, I'm so glad you asked.
The federal government has just passed a really exciting bill, which was signed into law by the president, Justice Paul, and it's called the Child Enforcement Law.
And what it does is it extends the ways to get money by a person who has a child support order, which is being ignored by his or her spouse.
Usually, let's face it, it's the woman who is left with a kid and the man goes off into the wild blue yonder and never sends any money home.
So she goes and she gets a child support order in the past that it has just been terribly terribly difficult, even with the order to enforce it.
This new law will let the federal government reach after him and first place there's a locator which will help find him.
If you don't know where he's gone, there's a federal locator that will help find him through social security numbers.
When you've got him under the new law, if there is so much as a month, a rear of child support, the court in the state in which he is located is mandated to deduct it from his wages.
And that was never the case before.
If there's more than a thousand dollars in a rearage, it will be reported to credit unions around the country.
And there are a whole lot of other things in there which will make husbands who are under support orders carfop faster with their child support so that the taxpayer doesn't have to support these children.
Okay now, Senator, that's the federal law. What does the state have to do? Is there an implement that's wrong?
Yes, there are definite things that have to be confirmed and that comes under the purview of my child care committee.
And right this minute in all the day, we've got at least three people working on it.
It's my hope that we get this bill right in and that we can form right down to the last semi-colon with the federal law so that we can get all the help we can get from the federal government in locating these people.
I mean, people have to remember, if there's anybody out there saying, gee, those poor fathers, they never can get out from under the burden.
The issue is should the father support the child or should the taxpayer support the child?
If the mother is able to support the child, she's not running around looking so hard for the father.
But for a mother who can't support a child or whether there's no mother and the child is in foster care, it is the taxpayer that's supporting the child.
And that the father is able to support it. That the father at Donut should support his children.
Is there any trouble between you and the assembly in this or is this an identical philosophy to you both feel the same way?
I can't believe there'd be any trouble because we haven't got the bill completely drafted. I haven't sort of sent these responses.
I understand the governor's office is also working on a bill. We'll all get together. It's important that we all know what the problems are so that we sit down.
We sit down with a bunch of knowledgeable people and we'll come with a bill that everybody will support.
Let me ask you a more personal question about yourself. You're the chair of this important committee dealing with children in the Senate.
But you're also one of the few women in the Senate. Do you think you will sexual start attacking the put you there?
No. At the time, when I was glorified to chair a committee, there were two vacancies, a childcare and agriculture.
Our leaders said I could have my choice. I took childcare and it's the most interesting committee and I've learned a lot.
Are you disillusioned by what you're seeing?
I never get disillusioned. I am stunned by the enormity of the problem. There are just so many children out there who do not have parents looking after them.
Or if they have parents looking after them, the parents are doing such a terrible job either because they are drug-written or they are alcoholic or they are insane.
That the child is not getting the kind of upbringing that it needs to be a member of society so that it can get ahead on its own two feet.
And the problems are just enormous and it behooves us to see that these children are able to hold jobs, are able to live normalize.
Otherwise, we're going to be taking care of them and add in the night of them.
State Senator Mary Goodhue makes for an interesting interview. She's tough and realistic but committed to changing things when changes appropriate.
For example, she knows that recent reports of child molestations in daycare centers are frightening and upsetting to parents.
But there is also the possibility that by dealing with a relatively few violations you will be upsetting the very fragile system which has been developed in communities around the state
where some very level-headed and decent people have set up daycare centers in their homes and under very inexpensive conditions.
Every time you ask that a daycare work would be certified. Every time you ask that they have certain educational attainments, you cut into the capacity of a small entrepreneur to provide a service that everyone agrees is essential to our contemporary lifestyles.
And certainly bureaucracy will continue to cover its own collective behinds by making one regulation after another.
The Department of Health and the Department of Social Services, for example, have already put many demands on daycare centers.
No more than six children, some cases, fire codes, sanitary codes, zoning expectations.
So because of the recent scares, we will construct a registry of known sex offenders who will be checked out in advance.
We will license facilities. We will make more and more demands. But you know what?
I'll bet that somehow sexual deviants will continue to find their ways into our schools, our daycare centers, and our homes.
Despite all the regulations. So what the society has to do is to try its best to set standards, but to do so in such a way that we don't throw the baby out with a dirty water.
That's why it's good that the legislative process is a fairly arduous one. That's why it's good that bill-setting standards have to find their ways through two houses.
And why hearings are held allowing for neighborhoods and well-meaning people who run daycare centers to come forward and complain.
And even when all the regulations are written in all the committees and all the publicity is done, some poor ladies have been doing a great job for very little money.
Very little money will be told she can continue because of the new regulations or the new laws and she will not have known a thing about it.
That's why we wish Senator Mary good-you and her staff the best of luck and the wisdom of Solomon in figuring all of this out.
That's our show of this week. Please join us again next week for another look at state government and politics.
Bill Grohlty produces an edit this program which would be Leopcowski's associate editor. Address comments and questions to us at WAMC.
Box 13,000, Albany, New York, 1-2-2, 1-2. I'm Alan Chartock.
The legislative gazette is produced by WAMC News. Alan Chartock is executive producer.
This program is made possible with funds from the state University of New York College at New Poles.
