D.A. Charles Hynes Announces New Initiative to Reduce Recidivism, Truancy in Central Brooklyn

Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes and the Community Partner Commission Association, Inc., announced earlier today the launch of Back on Track, a new program and partnership with The Fresh Air Fund and 60 other organizations that will address the problem of recidivism and truancy amongst youth offenders.

The new program announcement came on the heels of the official grand opening of CPCA’s new community center located at 2318 Atlantic Avenue in nearby Brownsville.

Additionally, TRACK (Truancy Reduction Alliance to Contact Kids), the long-standing truancy program out of the D.A.’s office that works with juvenile offenders and truants, will be housed at the CPCA Community Enrichment Center, making it the seventh TRACK center in Brooklyn.

“Truancy is the first sign that a young person is giving up and losing his or her way,” said Hynes. “When children are truant during school hours, they are more likely to become victims of and witnesses to horrific crimes. I made TRACK a priority when I created the program in 1998.”

The kids who participate in the new Back on Track program will be held at the center until their parents are contacted, while they receive counseling and access to the programs and services of the community center. In total more than 60 area organizations will offer their facilities and services to help run the program.

According to Dedra Wade, president of CPCA, Back on Track will serve as the healing to the TRACK program at the community center that already has serviced more than 300 children since last August – one child as young as seven years old.

Wade said, the center is not about punishing children or their parents; it’s about serving as a safe haven where, through counseling, mentoring and other services, they try to identify and address the root of each child’s problem.

“This is about being safe; it’s about keeping them protected; encouraging them to go back to school,” said Wade. “We gather around the children, we put our arms around them and say, ‘what do you need?’ And we get it done.”

Back on Track’s key partnership with The Fresh Air Fund – a non-profit organization founded in 1877 that provides free summer camp vacations to more than 1.7 million underserved youth – will provide host family and camp services for many of the troubled youth it serves.

“Fifteen years ago, you would not go to Redhook, unless you were accompanied by a platoon of marines,” said District Attorney Hynes. “The reason that Redhook is now one of the five safest places in New York City is because of their community corps. I call it the Miracle of Redhook.

“This program is going to replicate what was done in Redhook over the last 15 years. And I promise you, whatever else happens as a result of our efforts, we’ll have the same miracle here in Brownsville, East New York and all of Central Brooklyn.

“This is the most comprehensive program that has ever been created in this section of Brooklyn,” said Hynes. “Back on Track is going to be an extraordinary program that will be replicated, I believe, in the rest of this country.”