
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 19, 1991                   TAG: 9103190419
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

COYNER SPRINGS/ CAN'T KEEP PACKING KIDS INTO FACILITY

AMERICA is No. 1 in a lot of things, including the number of people it puts behind bars. The population of jails - federal, state and local - sets records every year. It has risen even in years when crime rates have fallen.

Public fear of crime, and impatience with perceived coddling of criminals, have increased the popular clamor to lock 'em up. We don't build enough cells to hold them all. And that includes facilities for youths in trouble with the law.

Coyner Springs Juvenile Detention Home in Botetourt County, run by the city of Roanoke, has 21 beds. It prefers to have only 75 percent of them occupied. Last year it operated at 103 percent of capacity; this year, that's expected to rise to 115 percent.

The young people now at Coyner Springs and comparable facilities are accused of committing crimes, some of them serious. They are, says Coyner Springs superintendent Mark Johnson, "older kids, larger kids, angrier kids, more experienced kids." This makes authorities reluctant to consider early release to make room for newcomers. But overcrowding creates problems within the homes, including conflicts among the youths.

And the home's purpose is not simply to warehouse young people, but to offer them treatment, including classes and other supervised activities. The hope remains that their lives can be reshaped and redirected. Overcrowding and warehousing can defeat that purpose, making likelier the youths' graduation to more serious crimes - hence, to institutions bulging at the seams.

Roanoke and other communities need more versions of Coyner Springs, and also changes in the ways we think about and deal with crime.

by CNB