Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 4, 1991 TAG: 9103040039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Charles Kehoe, director of the Virginia Department of Youth and Family Services, said he wants to put a stop to what he calls judicial sexism.
"We have a double standard in our society," Kehoe said. "If you're a male and promiscuous, there's some machoism in that, that we wink at. But if you're a girl and promiscuous, you're considered at risk for pregnancy, venereal disease, AIDS . . . and a danger to society."
During the past fiscal year, 60 percent of the girls sent to Bon Air, the state's only learning center for girls, had committed minor misdemeanors or acts such as truancy and ignoring curfews. During that period, 34 percent of the boys sent to learning centers had committed such offenses.
Shoplifting or joyriding in a stolen car can get a girl committed, while a boy would probably get probation for those offenses and even more serious ones, such as malicious wounding or selling drugs, juvenile officials said.
During fiscal year 1989-90, 1,255 boys were sent to the state's five centers for boys, and 153 girls were sent to Bon Air. But juvenile officials say far more boys commit serious crimes than girls, making space a premium at the boys' centers. And while a girl may be committed for a minor offense, her records usually show it is not her first, they said.
Kehoe and other juvenile officials say the bias is real. Robert Gilbert, who supervises Bon Air, said the courts sometimes take a paternalistic attitude toward girls.
"There's a tendency from the judiciary to want to take care of ladies," he said. "They're afraid girls will be abused, raped or will end up in a ditch, dead."
Families sometimes help perpetuate the double standard for girls and boys, juvenile officials say. Some report their daughters' misconduct but not their sons'.
Often a pregnant girl is committed to a learning center for a minor infraction.
Kehoe said the practice smacks of punishment. But a Norfolk judge said it sometimes means protection for an unborn infant.
"I would send a young girl who has committed a minor offense to Bon Air if that's what it takes to get her unborn child the prenatal care it deserves," said Charles Poston, Norfolk's chief juvenile court judge.
Kehoe recalled a 16-year-old girl, already on probation for running away from home, who shoplifted a shirt for her boyfriend's birthday. She was in her eighth month of pregnancy when she was sent to Bon Air, near Richmond.
"She told me she thought she had been committed so that she could get some prenatal care and have the state foot the bill," Kehoe said. "There's probably some truth to that."
Kehoe's department, which began coordinating juvenile justice services in Virginia in July, is trying to correct the system's tendency to treat male and female offenders differently.
The efforts seem to be showing results.
A year ago, Bon Air housed at least 100 girls at one time. Today, the average is about 50.
"When you place a kid in a room where the person on the other side of the locked door carries a two-way radio . . . and handcuffs on their hips, that kid begins to see himself as a menace," he said.
"The kid leaves worse than when he came in. And society is worse off because of it."
Poston said not every boy or girl warrants commitment, but some do, even those who repeatedly commit minor offenses.
"The child's only hope may be a learning center, where hopefully some of the values needed to lead a productive life will be instilled in them . . . so they don't come back," he said.
"We try everything available to keep a child in the community," said Thomas Hart, a Norfolk probation officer. "When we commit a girl, you can believe that all the options have been exhausted."
by CNB