ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 6, 1995 TAG: 9512060038
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
VIRGINIA's juvenile-justice system is caught in a tug-of-war.
Both sides agree that an increase in juvenile violent crime - and an even more alarming anticipated increase, as the juvenile population bulges around the turn of the century - will require new strategies to deal with young offenders.
Both sides recognize that some of these offenders are just plain mean, dangerous and incorrigible - who must be gotten off the streets to protect the rest of us.
The debate focuses on the purpose of the juvenile-justice system.
State law now says the ``paramount concern'' of juvenile courts should be the ``welfare of the child.'' The Governor's Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform, headed by Attorney General Jim Gilmore, wants that changed to the safety of the public, with greater focus on incarceration for violent offenders.
This shouldn't be an either/or. The General Assembly's challenge is to better provide for public safety and the welfare of youth. To meet that challenge, legislators must deal not just with rhetoric, but with reality.
They can be helped toward that end by a recent report of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, providing a factual accounting of what's happening in the system.
Foremost among JLARC findings, based on a study of 3,000 cases over a three-year period: Arrests of juveniles for violent crimes, while on the rise, still constitute only 3 percent of all juvenile crime. This would seem to rebuff the Gilmore commission's arguments that the system must be radically overhauled to protect the public against rampant juvenile violence.
At the same time, the JLARC report supports Gilmore's contentions that judges need more sentencing authority, and that the system needs to be better equipped to deal with violent offenders. Now, with Virginia's juvenile correction centers and local detention facilities filled to the brim, judges too often have little choice except to put convicted young people on probation where they receive only token attention and supervision from overworked probation officers. This serves neither youth welfare nor public safety - as evidenced by high recidivism rates among juveniles.
Here's the reality: Virginia's relatively low number of young offenders who commit serious, violent crimes may not justify abandoning the policy tilt toward juvenile welfare - but to do nothing would be a terrible error.
There is compelling evidence that juveniles are the driving force behind increases in violent crime. And, with the youth population growing, public safety demands new measures.
Surer and longer incarceration for demonstrably violent offenders is a key part of the answer. More boot camps, too, are needed. Incarcerated kids should expect hard work.
But these aren't the only answers. A more general and urgently needed reform is to intervene earlier and more dramatically in the lives of juveniles headed for lawlessness.
That means giving a lot more attention to truants, for example - and providing mentoring, at an even earlier age, for at-risk kids. The longer you wait to intervene, the harder it is to make a difference.
Once a juvenile lands in the justice system, another JLARC finding should be heeded. While making no pretense that treatment is a panacea, the report estimates that 30 percent of juvenile offenders now locked up could be served by community-based counseling and treatment programs if such programs were properly funded. They should be.
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