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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 16, 1995                   TAG: 9502160057
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUVENILE CRIME

That's bad news, which ought to have a silver lining: Trying to "rehabilitate" criminals is a risky venture, but the odds presumably should improve the earlier in a criminal's life it's attempted.

The presumption is accurate, experience in Jacksonville, Fla., suggests - if a middle ground is taken between letting juvenile offenders off with slaps on the wrist and simply locking 'em up without further ado.

Too often, the middle ground is ignored.

The traditional approach, treating juvenile lawbreakers as if they weren't really criminals in the adult sense and for whom incarceration is inappropriate, isn't working. Juvenile crime has grown too serious and too frequent.

But imprisoning juveniles as adults doesn't seem to help much, either. An estimated 75 percent of kids who do time behind adult bars get into trouble with the law again.

In Jacksonville, 16- and 17-year-old repeat offenders since 1991 have been routinely tried as adults. For some crimes, the age is lower. For the worst crimes, this means state prison; even, for one 17-year-old, a cell on Death Row. But for the bulk of juvenile crimes, like theft, it means spending eight or 10 months in the county jail rather than, say, 21 days in a juvenile-detention center.

But with a difference. Jacksonville, making use of a new and still uncrowded jail, puts juveniles on a floor of their own, kept apart from the criminality-reinforcing influence of older inmates. The floor is home to a Duval County public school whose classes the juveniles must attend. Also mandatory are counseling sessions and participation in a mentoring program. Adult convictions are erased if the youth gets out of jail and completes probation without getting into further trouble with the law.

True, this all costs money. There's expense in the construction and operation of jails roomy enough both to house scores of juvenile criminals and to keep them separate from other inmates. There's expense in the provision of education, counseling and mentoring.

But in 1991, juvenile crime in Jacksonville shot up 27 percent from the year before; by 1994 , juvenile arrests were down 30 percent from the year before. So far, the Jacksonville approach looks like a bargain.