The State Office of Children and Family Services says nearly 80 percent of the children released from its custody are re-arrested within three years. And it costs the state up to $200,000 a year to maintain one bed in a youth residential facility. OCFS spokesman Edward Borges says the penal model for dealing with youthful offenders is no longer effective.

A 2001 audit by the state comptroller found the Office of Children and Family Services was ill-equipped to meet the needs of troubled youth -- that the state was not providing them with mandated drug treatment and counseling. Charisa Smith is director of the Juvenile Justice Project at the Correctional Association of New York. Smith says alternative, community-based programs are more effective at meeting children's needs.

Smith says even the most expensive community-based program for treating troubled youth pales in comparison to the cost of housing a young person for one year at a residential facility. And she says the recidivism rate drops to 20 percent or less. But the union that represents the employees who staff the state's youth centers questions such claims. Public Employees Federation Spokeswoman Darcy Wells says her members are telling a different story. She says troubled youths sent to private facilities are failing and returning to OCFS facilities.

The Office of Children and Family Services estimates closing its residential facilities in Great Valley and Limestone would save $4 million. Currently, there are no children being housed in the 25-bed Great Valley facility, but its staff of 25 employees continues to show up for work. People like the Juvenile Justice Project's Charisa Smith says that's a waste of taxpayers money at a time when the state is in a fiscal crisis. But Wells says the OCFS itself is largely to blame for those empty beds by emptying facilities.

The union has examples of juvenile offenders who were inappropriately placed in private programs who later went AWOL and then committed such crimes as rape and attempted murder. But the OCFS counters that housing them in facilities with other trouble-makers results in an even greater threat to public safety once they're released.

Three-quarters of the children who are referred to the Office of Children and Family Services have substance abuse problems. Just over half have a mental illness. About a third have special education needs. The vast majority are boys who are Black or Hispanic and hail from New York City. But Ruben Austria, founder of the group Community Connections for Youth, says it's important to remember that they are children.

PEF's Darcy Wells says her members don't want to be painted as state bureaucrats who are simply interested in collecting their paychecks. She says they, too, are just as committed to helping troubled kids turn their lives around.

Governor David Paterson has appointed a special task force to study the state's juvenile justice system. Wells says the task force should be allowed to finish its work before decisions are made to close facilities.

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