ROANOKE TIMES 

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

DATE: TUESDAY, September 13, 1994                   TAG: 9409130029
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FACING THE FEAR PAYING THE PRICE

``I think discipline is gone. I think that's one of our problems. When we were kids we got punished. Plain, simple, cut-and-dried and you got in trouble, that was it. Stand with it, stand in the corner or stay in the room or whatever. Now it's covered up so they don't even know about it. Or if they do know about it, it's, you know, maybe a slap on the wrist, go out and play. Get out, get out of my way, you know.''

- Catherine McCormack, 43, Richmond, writer.

\ ``You need a deterrent, try discipline. You have to start somewhere. We used to have a cop on the beat that knew every kid, his father and how to reprimand that kid. Today the cop on the beat has a lot more beat - 20 miles that way and 20 miles that way. And he doesn't know one kid.''

- Arthur C. Sabin, 71, Arlington, retired.

\ ``I think things have gotten worse because of idle minds. Too many people haven't got anything to do. They don't have anything to do. We don't give our young people the opportunities, especially the inner-city youths. The problem is those types of jobs are few and far in between.''

- Jim Reid, 51, Manassas, self-employed newspaper distributor.|

\ ``I guess you can try and change the jail system or the parole system, but what it all gets to is setting examples, proper examples. I think it really gets back to character and values and what we've been teaching our kids. And letting them do and watch and see.''

- Kristina Keck, 25, Roanoke, marketing and recruiting.

\ ``It appears to the layman that children growing up in this society today, if they ever are brought into the judicial system, they get a sense there's no teeth involved in our judicial system where they're concerned. And therefore they kind of repeat the pattern over and over and over until they are adults and when they become adults it seems they go from one thing to another and pretty soon you have a serious type of crime.''

- Mike Riddle, 48, Franklin, auto sales manager.

\ ``I work at the mall, and one day a little boy, he was 14 years old, came in the store ... and he stole a tape; and, of course, when you are caught shoplifting, you get sent to jail, and in the back room at security's office, he was telling us that he had broken into houses, stole cars, he had been in fights at 14 years old. He had been sent to [a learning center], and it didn't faze him.

``And at court, when we went to court, he just sat there and grinned and laughed about it. His dad just said, `Well, I've tried and I've tried and everything, and he just won't listen.' And the judge said, `Do you want to go to Coyner Springs?'

``He's like, `I don't care.' He doesn't care. He did not care at all, and so he got sent to Coyner Springs and said, `I'll be back out on the weekend and do the same thing all over again.'''

- LaKisha Price, 16 Roanoke, high school senior. 


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