Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 24, 1994 TAG: 9401240084
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Handgun bans for teen-agers, except for sport. Life in prison for unrepentant thugs. Boot camps for first-timers. Adult trials and prisons for young incorrigibles. Vasectomies for abusive fathers and weapons-free zones around schools.
Associated Press statehouse bureaus found these and more in a mountain of bills and proposals offered in the 44 legislatures meeting this year.
In sheer volume, anti-crime bills dwarf measures to draft budgets, improve education, fix welfare, get cracking on health care reform, and deal with persistent issues like drunken driving.
"As compared to education or the environment," Iowa state Sen. Jack Rife explained, "this is the hot button that gets us all re-elected."
Overall, reported crime is down. The FBI in October announced a 2.9 percent drop to 141 million reported crimes in 1992, the first decline since 1984.
But violent crime is up. And the violent are more often young.
While arrests of adults for murder and some lesser forms of homicide rose 11 percent from 1982 to 1991, arrests of juveniles for those crimes rose 93 percent, the Children's Defense Fund said last week.
The numbers electrify lawmakers like Robin Taylor, a state senator in Alaska.
"As these statistics move out of Los Angeles, they come creeping into Anchorage, and from there it will get out to the villages and hamlets of Alaska," he warned.
Last year nearly half the states enacted laws dealing with weapons and youth violence. This year a dozen propose gun control measures. Some would bar gun ownership for anyone under 18; some others ban assault weapons.
Some states are also trying to prevent youth crime by linking agencies working to guide children into productive adulthood.
"There are a lot of legislators who are saying `How can we look across departments? That the same client is being serviced by juvenile justice, by job training, by social services, by education - how do we bring them together to solve the problem?' " said Karl Kurtz, head of state services for the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures, which advises states.
For example, Washington state lawmakers will consider a package of bills that include gun control for minors, stricter penalties for juvenile criminals, job training, community anti-crime efforts, a public ad campaign against violence and anger-management classes in schools.
More typical are single measures with public appeal.
Especially popular are variations of "three strikes, you're out," the slogan that sold Washington voters last November on a law that will lock up the worst offenders for life with no parole after a third conviction. Similar laws are proposed in nine states.
The death penalty could return to Alaska and Kansas under measures in those states and New Jersey may start a statewide gun swap.
South Carolina Rep. Steve Lanford wants weightlifting barred in prison. "They need to spend more time in the library instead of the weight room," he said.
Florida's 6-cent sales tax could go up a half-cent to generate $1 billion for more prisons, more courts and more police.
Prisons for teen-agers are proposed in Kansas, Nebraska and New Mexico. Nonviolent offenders would be sent to boot camps to learn discipline under Nebraska, Minnesota and Missouri measures. Schools in Indiana, Iowa and New York could be declared off-limits to guns. Trying teen-agers as adults could get easier in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa and Mississippi.
Under one Rhode Island measure, parents convicted twice of child abuse could lessen their prison time if they get sterilized.
Bills in Colorado and Oklahoma would allow concealed weapons. The Colorado measure also makes gun permits easier to get for domestic abuse victims.
Children would get lessons in how to avoid abduction under a New York proposal.
Plenty of other pressing issues also are piled on legislative plates.
Now that Clinton administration plans for health care reform are known, more or less, at least 10 states are acting on their own. A state health alliance is proposed in a Maine bill and Utah may establish a state health care commission.
Work plus welfare is the key in reforms offered in Massachusetts, Maine, Arizona and Missouri, where Gov. Mel Carnahan wants to pay employers to hire welfare recipients, offer job training, mentoring and child care, and create jobs.
An Arizona lawmaker wants to fingerprint applicants for Aid to Families with Dependant Children. If passed, the anti-fraud law would need a waiver from Washington.
The war on drunken drivers prompted Virginia, Massachusetts and Tennessee bills to lower the legal limit to 0.08 blood-alcohol content.
by CNB