Senator Carlucci & Advocates Celebrate New Law To Protect People with Special Needs

Today Senator David Carlucci celebrated the signing of new legislation into law that will protect people with special needs. The primary purpose of the bill is to protect people with disabilities during an interview with the Justice Center, a law enforcement agency and advocate for people with special needs.

While the Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs was given all the powers of a law enforcement agency, it was not required to take into account the special needs of the people who it is charged with protecting during the course of an interview.

Senator David Carlucci (D-Rockland/Westchester) said, “Creating common sense protections for people with special needs will ensure the rights of individuals being interviewed by the Justice Center are protected. I want to commend the leaders of our community for identifying this issue and working with me to get this bill signed into law.”

The law will require that the Justice Center review the individual’s clinical characteristics prior to interviewing the individual to make sure that an interview with strangers would not present a danger (be clinically contraindicated) and, for example, trigger behavioral or psychiatric issues.

Marc Brandt, head of NYSARC, Inc., the nation’s largest family governed nonprofit serving people with developmental disabilities, said “The new law provides commonsense protections for people with disabilities who are interviewed by the Justice Center in such a manner as to protect them and the Justice Center’s investigatory process.  Our Arc chapters across the State thank Senator Carlucci for sponsoring this very important bill and making sure it was signed into law.”

Carmine Machionda, Director of ARC Rockland said, “I want to thank Senator Carlucci for working with us to pass these important protections into law. This new law fills a gap that was missing with the Justice Center and will ensure new protections are added to support people with special needs during investigations.”

Ric Schwartz, Director of Sullivan County ARC said, “Working with Senator Carlucci we were able to address a major concern advocates had with the Justice Center. This new law will provide common sense protections while not destroying the integrity of investigations.”.

Susan Miller, ARC of Sullivan Board President said, “Working to protect the rights of people with special needs like my brother is critical. I want to thank Senator Carlucci for working to pass this common sense piece of legislation into law.”