Citing conditions that give rise to a "second-class" family court system for the largely poor and nonwhite population it serves, a state commission charged with rooting out racial bias in New York's courts has issued a set of recommendations for improvement that includes getting more judges on the bench.

"Family Courts are currently in crisis, which negatively impacts families, particularly children, who are the most vulnerable," the Franklin H. Williams Judicial Commission of the New York Courts wrote in a report released in December. "Further increasing the number of Family Court judges will address unconscionable delays in resolving cases, avoiding longer periods of stay in foster care for children, longer periods of uncertainty in custody cases, longer time for resolution of juvenile delinquency cases, longer periods of anxiety for domestic violence victims, and protracted periods of the stress, instability and trauma implicit in the cases heard in Family Court."