SCHOOL ADVOCACY AND JUVENILE CRIMES BUREAU
The School Advocacy Bureau (SAB) was established in 1997 with the specific aim of providing special attention to one of the most at risk communities in Brooklyn: students. Its goal is to establish and maintain a safe educational environment by creating better and open lines of communication between educators, students and law enforcement. By achieving this goal, school law enforcement agents become involved earlier in criminal investigations thus relieving the school administrators from this burden and allowing them to focus on their primary role as educators. This approach has also greatly improved the prosecution of cases by making sure all legal protocols are followed and maintained. The bureau is responsible for handling both felony and misdemeanor prosecution of school related crimes. This includes not only crimes against students and school staff that happen on school campus but also crimes that occur going to and from school.
SAB is also responsible for investigating and prosecuting Adolescent Offender crimes (16- 17 yr olds) and certain designated Juvenile Offender crimes (14- 15 yr olds). With the passing of the Raise the Age Law in April of 2017 in New York State, the majority of the bureau’s cases involve 14 to 17-year-olds charged with violent crimes. The bureau works directly with the Law Department, ECAB, the arraignment parts, and evaluates new cases daily to determine which cases should be removed to Family Court and which should be retained and prosecuted in Supreme Court. The bureau staffs the Youth Part daily and handles all phases of prosecution from the arraignment, to the retention hearing, to grand jury to trial.
The Bureau consists of felony level Assistant District Attorneys that are assigned violent felony cases where the defendants are between the ages of 14 and 17, and are assigned felony cases that occur on school grounds with defendants at any age. The junior attorneys handle misdemeanor cases where the defendants are between the ages of 18 and 24, with an aim to divert most cases to rehabilitative programs and non-criminal dispositions. They are assigned to the Brooklyn Young Adult Court.
To learn more about SAB, please call (718) 250- 2051.