The Silver Streakers senior citizen club caught a glimpse of the crimes Colonie court officials are faced with on a daily basis when they met with Town Justice Peter Crummey, who spoke before the group the afternoon of Monday, April 7, at the Towers of Colonie apartment complex.
He went through all the difference cases and talked about the major crime problems in town, said Terry Miller, vice president of the Silver Streakers.
`Drugs and alcohol seem to be the two biggest, and Crummey explained those crimes can lead to theft from the department stores. He’s very easy to understand.`
Crummey said he told the senior citizens about the same crimes and punishments that he educates high school students about when he lectures throughout Colonie school districts.
`The questions really were focused on that and, of course, the ever-growing domestic violence issues that are brought into the courthouse on a regular basis,` said Crummey, `I think that those human issues that people seem to have some knowledge of somewhere, either with a neighbor, friend, or co-worker, brought home the reality of what’s actually happening here in our busy court.`
Crummey made sure the Streakers knew a few statistics about the town while explaining the crime rates.
`I reminded everyone, while we have 80,000 residents, while we were gathered, 130,000 were in our town today,` he said, explaining that much of the town’s crime comes from non-residents of the town, or people who work a day job in Colonie.
He also pointed out that he had seen 2,500 cases last year and of those, 1,800 were traffic related.
Barbara Maples, social director of the Silver Streakers, said she was surprised to hear that of the Town of Colonie Court is ranked the 29th busiest in the state of New York.
`We just thought it was traffic court, but it’s criminal court also, and we learned what types of problems we have in our town. We have the teen drug scene and so many traffic violations, and it was interesting to learn how many times the Colonie town police will pull someone over for speeding and they might find they’re in possession of firearms and how [the judicial system] really helps keep our town cleaned up,` she said.
Crummey said that in his ninth year as a town judge, he has come to learn that many of the town’s criminal troubles have to do with addictions ` both physical and emotional.
`I spent some time on that because not only do addictions bring a tremendous amount of case activity, but a lot of times they are the genesis of introduction into the justice system,` said Crummey, `It’s something that society needs to continue to take a look at ` how to get its arms around the criminal justice system,`
Crummey said that addictions end up costing everybody in the town money because often addicts continue to fall back into criminal patterns, repeatedly being arrested and processed ` which costs the taxpayers money.
`What I pointed out to the Silver Streakers, and younger people, is that actually you have to ask the question if you mind paying for their addiction,` he said, `You have to realize that you’re paying for people to do crack; is that still OK with you?`
Vice President Miller said the program, which lasted longer than 45 minutes was well received by the group.
`I thought it was an excellent presentation. I have heard him before at Republican meetings, and I was sure that people were interested,` said Miller.
`I had people coming up to me saying that was the best presentation we’ve ever had.`
Maples agreed that Crummey’s presentation was a good choice for the group.
`He was not only informative, but he was also pleasant and funny. We are certainly glad that he took the time to talk to our seniors. Our group asked many questions, and he answered them all very nicely and he’s just a very good spokesperson for the town.`
Crummey said he was pleased to talk to the seniors about the Colonie Town Court System, which he praised as being well known throughout New York.
`Often the NYC courts look to Colonie as an example of a successful court operation. We get phone calls every week from other courts asking questions about how to do things,` he said.“