Newsletter 1/28/22

juvenilejusticeforum
January 31, 2022

I want to thank those who joined me on Wednesday evening for the virtual coffee hour. It's so beneficial to get to speak directly with you about your ideas and concerns. It's your continued engagement that makes me a better representative. 

Below please find information on:

  • Juvenile Criminal Justice Panel Recap
  • New Glass Recycling Drop Off in Fairfield 
  • Donating Blood 
  • Weekend Read 
 
Juvenile Criminal Justice: A Deeper Dive
On Tuesday night, Rep. McCarthy Vahey and I co-hosted a panel discussion with Fairfield Police Detectives Beth Leech and George Buckmir, along with Mike Lawlor, a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven and a former prosecutor, legislator, and undersecretary for criminal justice at the Office of Policy and Management. 

We furthered the conversation from our last juvenile justice panel by unpacking additional challenges that law enforcement officers are facing and hearing ideas for how the legislature can both work directly with the judicial branch and also implement policy to address these issues. Through this conversation, we found a real pain point around the fact that our law enforcement, over the years, has been asked to do more and more and has not received the resources to facilitate that additional work. Again, we discussed the importance of earlier intervention on low-level juvenile offenses to reach juveniles and prevent their engagement in higher-level offenses. We will focus the third panel in this series on what upstream factors lead kids to crime and what are proven effective strategies to prevent kids from turning to crime. You can look forward to more information on this in the coming weeks.

If you weren't able to join us, you can watch the full panel discussion here. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions for me or the panelists. 
 
Glass Recyclying 
The Town of Fairfield is piloting a new approach for handling glass recyclables. Residents will be able to voluntarily separate out their glass bottles and jars and bring them separately to a container at the Town Transfer Station on Richard White Way. 

From the collection point, the glass will be transported to Urban Mining in Beacon Falls, Conn., where it will be crushed and turned into a substance called pozzolan, an additive for high-end cement that helps reduce its carbon footprint by up to 40 percent.
Remember to rinse and remove all caps from bottles and jars before recycling them at the transfer station! 
 
Donate Blood
As National Blood Donor Month comes to a close the Red Cross faces the worst blood shortage in a decade and more than ever, your help is needed. Make an appointment today to give blood or platelets by using the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org or calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767).
 
Weekend Read
I wrote an op-ed on how we continue to work through the challenges our law enforcement and young people are facing. I hope you will give it a read this weekend! Here's an excerpt: 
"Last summer and fall, Connecticut, like much of the nation, saw an uptick in property crimes. Thankfully, CT continues to have the fourth-lowest rate of violent crime; however, recent events have left all of us a bit more unsettled. Working with the governor's office, Judicial Branch, law enforcement, and other state agencies, we identified and implemented some immediate solutions. These include providing judges additional information when evaluating whether to approve a police officer's request to detain a child suspected of crime; implementing next-business-day arraignments for offenses involving a gun and car thefts; and funding regional car theft task forces across the state. In the lead-up to the legislative session, one of my priorities is working to identify the root causes of this uptick and propose solutions that will prevent crime long-term while also continuing to listen to the nearer-term needs of our law enforcement."  Read Full Article Here