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

DATE: SUNDAY, December 18, 1994                   TAG: 9412190083
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

JUVENILE DETENTION REFORMS SUGGESTED

A bipartisan task force has called for the overhaul of the state's juvenile incarceration system, which some task force members described as outmoded and intolerable.

``There are a lot of conditions statewide that are not acceptable for us, as human beings. It's not the fault of the people who run those facilities,'' Del. Thomas Jackson, D-Hillsville, the task force chairman, said Friday.

The task force of the Virginia Commission on Youth was formed in 1992 shortly after a consultant described conditions inside the state's 17 detention homes as ``the stuff of Dickens.''

Under the task force proposal, each locality would receive special financial support, based on crime trends; and more money would be made available for detention home construction. The plan also provides more money for alternatives to incarceration, such as electronic monitoring.

The task force estimated the reforms would cost as much as $7 million for the first half of 1996 and $14 million the following year.

Nancy Ross, the commission's executive director, said the state gives more than $23 million a year in block grants to local governments for juvenile confinement and punishment.

``To simply redistribute that $23 million, it will not work,'' because the needs are too great, she said.

The state's detention homes have space for 532 juveniles but house 600 to 700. In 1992, the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center warned that crowding was endangering the health of children.

Detention homes, the equivalent of jails for juveniles, are used primarily to securely hold youths awaiting trial. The state's seven youth correctional centers are the equivalent of prisons for juveniles.

The state has space planned or under construction for more 173 beds by July 1997 at a cost to the state and localities of $30 million.

The proposal would permit every locality to receive a cut of the state money. No participating locality or regional entity would receive less money than it gets now; many localities that receive nothing would be getting money for the first time.

by CNB