Assembly Marks National Crime Victims' Week with Legislative Package
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Governmental Operations Committee Chair RoAnn Destito announced Assembly passage of a legislative package in honor of National Crime Victims' Rights Week to improve treatment and services for crime victims. "The package of bills that the Assembly has put together responds to specific and repeated concerns voiced by crime victims in New York State," said Silver (D-Manhattan). "Although we are unable to completely relieve the pain and suffering many victims continue to feel, we can and must ensure that laws and programs are in place to address their needs and allow them to make the best recovery possible." "Through this legislative package, we reaffirm our commitment to providing the necessary tools to help crime victims in their recovery," said Destito (D-Rome). "For those who have been victimized, this package will expand compensation and the assistance those victims rightly deserve." The legislative package includes measures that would:
Direct the Municipal Police Training Council to establish policies and procedures of police officers, relating to the investigation of and intervention into sex offenses, and also direct the Office of Court Administration to provide training to judges and justices with respect to crimes involving sexual assault (A.2349/Weinstein);
Allow a court to direct that part or all of any fine or penalty paid by an adjudicated violator of the State's Antitrust Law be paid to the Office of Victim Services (A.2942-A/Destito);
Allow people who maintained significant and long-term, yet not legally formalized relationships with homicide victims to be eligible for compensation from the Office of Victim Services for actual out of pocket losses and counseling expenses. These people would include, for example, elderly siblings, relatives sharing living quarters in a mutually interdependent relationship, adult partners in long-term committed relationships not formalized by marriage and those who have parent-child relationships but have not entered into a formal adoption arrangement (A.3592/Glick);
Enable courts to remove firearms and revoke firearm licenses of individuals who have been adjudicated as incapacitated or ordered to treatment or commitment to a mental facility, and require anyone subject to such orders to have an existing firearm license revoked and be ordered to surrender all firearms, rifles or shotguns in his or her possession (A.3081/Lupardo);
Provide a remedy for victims subject to false financing statements filed against them by assisting victims in proving that a financial statement was bogus or false with a certification filed with the Secretary of State. The certification would be provided by the court where a criminal conviction was entered against a defendant, or secured party, and include specific filing information related to the victim's false financial statement (A.3457/Gabryszak);
Extend the authorization for the interagency task force on human trafficking until September 1, 2013 (A.6800/Meng);
Change the Office of Victim Services' reporting requirement relating to information on the manner in which the rights, needs and interests of crime victims are met in the criminal justice system to allow for a more meaningful analysis (A.5811/Destito); and
Provide that sexual contact upon a person under the age of 13 by a person 21 years-old or older be considered sexual abuse in the first degree (A.788/Destito).