ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 16, 1995 TAG: 9512180027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SERIES: Kids & crime
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
MOST ARE RUNAWAYS. No kids were charged with murder, rape or manslaughter last year.
Roanoke leads the state in juvenile arrests, but most of the city's young lawbreakers are runaways and curfew busters - not the teen killers and rapists who make headlines.
City police made 3,241 arrests involving juveniles in 1994, enough to rank Roanoke first in Virginia on a per capita basis, according to figures from the state's Commission on Youth. With 1,530 arrests per 10,000 juveniles, Roanoke's rate is substantially higher than Richmond and other larger cities with high-crime reputations.
A closer look at the numbers, however, shows more good news than bad.
No juveniles were charged with murder, rape or manslaughter in Roanoke last year. With 20 robbery arrests and 29 aggravated assault charges, the city's violent crime rate for juveniles ranked 20th in the state.
Instead of running down young killers and robbers, Roanoke authorities spend more time charging youngsters with running away from home.
Last year, Roanoke police made 703 runaway arrests - a misnomer, since most runaways are sent back home or to shelters instead of to court - making it the most frequently used charge involving Roanoke juveniles. Another 208 arrests were made under the city's curfew ordinance. Many of the runaway and curfew arrests involved repeat offenders.
The high number of arrests for runaway and curfew violations - often considered the first sign that a young person is headed for more serious trouble - might explain why there are relatively few arrests for violent felonies.
``Very few kids wake up one morning and decide `I'm going to become a felon,''' said Lt. J.E. Dean, head of the Roanoke Police Department's Youth Bureau. "It starts with something as simple as staying out past their parents' curfew, and it works its way up."
By intervening early and getting young runaways off the streets and into counseling programs, police hope to continue a trend that shows violent crime down in Roanoke while it escalates elsewhere.
In Richmond, by comparison, police charged 14 juveniles with murder last year, but listed just one runaway arrest in the state's Uniform Crime Reports.
"There's no question about it: The longer an adolescent is on the street, the greater the chances that they will victimize someone or become victims themselves," said Nancy Ross, executive director of the state's Commission on Youth.
While juvenile crime has been increasing across the state in recent years, the number of serious arrests in Roanoke has actually dipped slightly since 1990.
Dean is especially encouraged that the arrests of youngsters under 10 - who are the most likely to be re-arrested on more serious charges when they've entered their teens - has been steadily declining in Roanoke, from 259 in 1983 to 103 last year.
"If that continues," Dean said, "then Roanoke is hopefully going against what is a national trend."
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB