DATE: Saturday, March 8, 1997               TAG: 9703080215

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LORRAINE EATON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   93 lines

COMBATING JUVENILE CRIME DEBATERS SEEK SOLUTIONS WILL PUBLIC CANING DECREASE CRIME? STUDENT SAYS YES.

Booker T. Washington High School debater Shelita Phillips thinks she has the answer to juvenile crime, but her solution takes some getting used to.

Policy debaters in high schools nationwide this year are tackling the topic of juvenile crime. Thousands of debaters have researched and prepared plans to combat the problem. They also stand ready to tear into any ideas their opponents might offer.

Few debaters this year have anticipated Shelita's solution: public canings, like the one that an American youth endured in Singapore in 1992.

Shelita won first place with that argument last weekend in a Tidewater Debate League competition. She has high hopes that the plan will serve her well in district competitions later this month and in national qualifiers in April.

``I'm a hard-liner,'' said Shelita, a senior who is the Tidewater District's No. 1 novice debater on the negative side, when she's tearing into other people's plans. ``There's a lot of tolerance in this country; we need to get that tolerance out.''

Shelita's ``Singapore model'' harbors scant tolerance for any crime - even actions that aren't criminal in the U.S., such as sticking gum under a desk.

``In Singapore, you would go through the courts for that and get a fine,'' she said.

When Shelita confidently stands behind the podium during debates with her partner, junior April Farrow, the most common argument against the plan is that it infringes on individual rights.

No problem. Tucked into a blue plastic tub are reams of evidence and expert testimonies that say the government should consider the quality of the life of the people before they consider individual rights.

Or the opposing side will charge that caning is cruel and unusual punishment.

Shelita and April will fire back with a speech about tradeoffs and explain that it's really not so cruel when compared to outcome - a higher quality of life for all - supported by statements from learned professors and statesmen, of course.

But, the opposing team asks, does Singapore's system work? That's an easy one.

Shelita lifts the lid off her box and instantly extracts the file she wants. It compares Los Angeles to Singapore. Both have roughly 2.7 million residents. In Singapore in 1993, there were 58 homicides; in Los Angeles there were 1,100. There are similar statistics for rape, assault and car thefts.

With the help of debate coach Colleen Hunt, Booker T.'s team has dished up other strong plans to combat juvenile crime, each with its own bulging evidence file.

For sophomore debate partners Steven Byrd and Andrew Richardson, it's abolishing the juvenile justice system altogether - one system for all. Sophomore Doris Taylor wants to mandate quality parenting.

And freshman Josh Whaley and team captain Cynthia Parker, a junior, call for a drastic increase in community policing. ``If you want to stop juvenile crime, you have to stop it before it happens,'' Josh said.

THESE STUDENTS HAVE BASED their plans on more than what they've learned through hundreds of hours of research. Their knowledge is more intimate. Cynthia knew a young man who sold drugs and was shot in the head. Steven knows a guy who dropped out of school and is heavily involved in drugs.

As these debaters pore over obscure technical journals and computer records, or when they stand behind the podium making their arguments, real faces waft in and out of their thoughts.

``Every time I debate I think about him,'' Steven said. ``I try not to let it throw me off, but sometimes it's not that easy.''

Steven admits his plan might not have had any effect in his friend's case, but he doesn't think other plans he's heard this year would have either - everything from national curfews to erasing all graffiti. Even the weird ones pose a challenge for the negative-side debaters, who must prove them unsound.

Debaters say those solutions are no stranger than the real-life plans bandied around by adults. The most absurd, the students said, is school uniforms. Even in this inner-city school, very few kids steal clothing, they said, so why make everyone else suffer?

The debaters firmly believe that Shelita's Singapore plan is the best to reduce juvenile crime. They know adults and legislators will roll their eyes and say it will never work. But in the world they live in, the possibility of a public caning would be a powerful deterrent to young would-be criminals, they said. It might not look good for politicians, but it would be best for the people.

``The U.S. is too soft,'' Cynthia said. ``That's why juvenile crime is such a problem.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color photo]

TAMARA VONINSKI/The Virginian-Pilot

Senior Shelita Phillips, a debater at Booker T. Washington High

School, believes public caning should be adopted in the United

States to deter juvenile crime. Her argument could take her to a

national debating contest on the subject. KEYWORDS: JUVENILE CRIME

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