Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 13, 1993 TAG: 9310130269
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAROLYN CLICK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
So he said he was not surprised Tuesday when an auditorium of youngsters at Roanoke's Addison Aerospace Magnet Middle School stopped squirming and quickly raised their hands when he asked if they had ever seen a handgun. Some of the hands lingered in the air when he asked if they had ever seen a handgun used in a violent crime.
All over Virginia, in suburban locales and inner cities, he gets the same answer "regardless of geography, economics or schools." And he said what is even more disturbing is the answers he gets when he asks kids if their parents are aware of the slice of life they know outside their homes.
"The parents don't actually know what the kids know," he said.
If he were elected the state's top lawyer, Dolan, a former chairman of the state Board for Community Colleges, said he wants to link education with crime, believing that an emphasis on one will lead to a decline in the other.
"We are making a fundamental mistake when we don't focus our fight on crime at the elementary-school level," said Dolan, who suggested young truants should be identified early to prevent them from growing up to be adult criminals.
But Dolan acknowledged that the debate between him and his Republican opponent, Jim Gilmore, has turned largely on the issue of parole and who would be tougher on the state's burgeoning prison population. Even the questions posed by the assembled youngsters suggested that the issue of parole is linked in their minds with coddling criminals.
Gilmore, the Henrico County commonwealth's attorney, has been instrumental in crafting the debate, called for the abolition of parole for violent criminals and a return to "truth-in-sentencing."
But Dolan on Tuesday dismissed that argument as a "polished-up Willie Horton speech." Horton, a Massachusetts inmate who committed a violent crime while on a weekend furlough, became a symbol of the 1988 presidential campaign and helped George Bush defeat Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
Gilmore's argument has struck enough of a chord with crime-weary and gun-control-shy Virginians that his gubernatorial running mate, George Allen, and Allen's opponent, former Attorney General Mary Sue Terry, both have advocated changes in parole laws.
But the push by Republicans has placed the Democrats in the awkward position of defending the status quo.
In reality, Dolan told members of the Roanoke Bar Association later in the day, there ought to be changes in the way the parole system is operated. But he believes the Republican concept is "fundamentally flawed" because the GOP candidates won't acknowledge the cost of building more prisons to house inmates and aren't willing to embrace gun control measures such as a five-day waiting period to purchase handguns.
"It's impossible to be tough on crime and then take a walk on guns," he said.
Dolan, a Northern Virginia lawyer and former president of the Virginia State Bar, said the Republican ticket is capitalizing on the "sourness of the day," and the feeling that a change is needed after 12 years of Democratic statewide rule.
Dolan and Gilmore were tied at 37 percent each in a Washington Post poll published Oct. 4. With three weeks left in the campaign, Dolan said he is encouraged by the number of prospective voters undecided on the attorney general's race.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB