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

DATE: TUESDAY, September 13, 1994                   TAG: 9409130030
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CRIME FACTS

From 1980 to 1992, the arrest rate for juveniles who committed violent crimes in Virginia shot up by nearly 61 percent. The juvenile arrest rate for murder increased by nearly 280 percent during the same period.

The number of juveniles in the 13- to 17-year-old age group is expected to increase 30 percent - from 200,000 to 260,000 - by 2005. The Department of Criminal Justice Services has projected a 114 percent increase in serious juvenile offenses between 1992 and 2002.

In 1982, juveniles accounted for less than 1 percent of all arrests for sales of Schedule I or II drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, according to the Governor's Commission on Violent Crime in Virginia. By 1992, juveniles represented about 13 percent of all such arrests.

Of the 1,470 juveniles committed to juvenile learning centers in Virginia last year, only 13 percent were attending school regularly when they were committed. Seventeen percent occasionally missed school, and 65 percent were often truant or not attending school at all.

The state's seven learning centers, operating at 100 juveniles above their 725-person capacity, are expected to see their population increase by 1,200 by 1998.

In the juvenile system, serious offenders may be held for up to seven years or until their 21st birthdays. They are sent to ``learning centers,'' institutions that have become overcrowded - some say overwhelmed - as they have struggled to cope with increasingly violent youths.

by CNB