NYC NOW - October 2, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Federal prosecutors say they may bring additional charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams at a court hearing Wednesday. Meanwhile, Congressmember Dan Goldman and 15 colleagues are urging YouTube to do more to prevent young users from accessing gun-related videos. Plus, people incarcerated at Otisville State Correctional Facility in Orange County can now earn an associate degree through CUNY's Prison to College Pathways program. WNYC’s David Furst speaks with Program Director Denisse Martinez and Academic Director Carla Barrett, who is teaching a course at the facility this semester.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, October 2nd. Here's the midday news. I'm Jenae Pierre. New York City Mayor Eric Adams is in court today and the federal prosecutors on his case say they're considering bringing additional charges against him. The new charges were disclosed during the hearing Wednesday morning.

Adams has pleaded not guilty to the existing charges, which include bribery, wire fraud, and soliciting foreign nationals to contribute to his campaigns. On Monday, his attorneys moved to dismiss the bribery charge. The lawyers are also expected to ask for a hearing about leaks to the media. Adam says he intends to remain in office. We'll have more on this in the evening episode of NYC Now. New York Congress member Dan Goldman is calling on YouTube to do a better job preventing young users from watching videos related to guns.

The Democratic lawmaker and 15 of his colleagues are sending a letter to the platform CEO, just months after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg did the same thing. While Bragg's letter did lead the platform to change some of its policies, Goldman says the changes didn't go far enough. A recent report from the Tech Transparency Project showed a test account created by a team was still able to access gunmaking videos. Ultimately, YouTube is going to be held accountable. And I would advise them to quickly rectify this problem so it doesn't escalate.

YouTube did not respond to a request for comment. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNYC, I'm David First. People incarcerated at the Otisville State Correctional Facility in Orange County, New York, can now earn a full associate's degree through the City University of New York's Prison to College Pathways program. The expanded program is a new partnership between the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the borough of Manhattan Community College. Joining us now is the program director Denise Martinez and academic director Carla Barrett,

who is teaching a course at the facility this semester. Denise, this program has been offered to people incarcerated at the state facility at Otisville for over a decade now, but how is it different this year? Yeah, that's a great question. So our program was launched in 2011, and it was originally designed as a reentry-based program in which students began their CUNY education in prison and continued in the community to complete their degrees upon release. Most recently, we've redesigned our program to make it such that students can earn their associates degrees within the facility prior to their release because research shows that students are much more likely to complete their degrees inside of the facility, as opposed to. coming home and having to complete those upon release. Denise, one goal, like any other college program, is to equip students with the skills and

knowledge that they need to enter the workforce. How else does this program do that and serve this population? Yeah, so we don't just offer accredited college courses to our students. We really try to provide as many wraparound services as possible. So we do individualize advising to make sure that students are being informed about what courses they're taking and ensuring that they're making progress toward the degrees. We also provide hands-on financial aid counseling so that students are aware of what their financial aid means for them, both while they're incarcerated and when they come home. We have academic reentry planning, which essentially addresses all of our students' reentry-based needs with regard to housing, health care, child reunification, et cetera,

that they can lean on post-release. Well, Carla, can you bring us into the classroom at Otisville? I would imagine when you're incarcerated, you already have a lot on your mind. Talk about what the learning experience is like for students in the facility. Our students at Otisville, we find across the board, are incredibly dedicated and highly engaged. So they come to our classroom with the readings done, with their work done, ready to sort of start having discussions. So our students do come with a lot of other pressures. They're being pulled in a lot of different directions. Their conditions of their learning are not necessarily ideal.

They're often studying inside crowded housing units and those sorts of things. But I find that they bring their A game quite frequently. And that allows for a tremendous amount of positive things to happen within the learning communities in our classroom. How is the teaching experience similar or different from what you would experience in a classroom outside the facility? We always talk about how our classes inside should be as similar as possible to our classes outside. So our professors come with the same learning goals, right, the same set of standards, the same set of expectations for their students in many ways. But at the same time, teaching in a prison classroom is not the same as teaching in the

community. One of the main differences is the lack of access to technology. There is no smart classroom. And so we fall back on time-honored traditions of teaching without technology, right? And again, when you have students that show up and are engaged and want to learn, it ends up not really being a deficit that the technology isn't there. Well, Denise, what does the future of higher education in prison look like? Is this a model? What you're doing here? Is this something that can be replicated in other facilities?

Or is it more complicated than that? I think, you know, there are certainly opportunities for college in prison to be normal. It really shouldn't be that you have this few select programs that are committed to this. Pell Grants were designed to increase college participation among our nation's most. economically disadvantaged people. And if we know anything about prison, that is exactly who ends up in prison. And so it really is a historic moment for institutions to rethink how they are reaching all of their constituents. And at least for our program, we're very excited about this next phase. And we're excited for what's to come. I mean, we've not been able to confer John Jay degrees inside because

historically, these sentence at Otisville were such that people were coming home. before they can complete all of their requirements of a baccalaureate degree. Hence the need to partner with the junior college to offer an associates. But as the landscape of incarceration changes and the sentence lengths begin to change at Otisville, we even foresee a future in which there might be opportunities to offer bachelor's degrees inside. College in prison right now is heavily saturated with associates degrees. And while that's great, the next phase is to introduce more bachelor's degrees. beyond that. Our guests have been Denise Martinez, the director of CUNY's Prison to College Pathways

program, and Carla Barrett, who is the academic director. Thanks to both of you for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.