ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 20, 1996 TAG: 9605200139
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DECLINING crime rates would bring broader smiles to law-abiding Americans if the figures weren't accompanied by a grim caveat - the increasing youthfulness and severity of juvenile crime.
That's unhappy news in its own right. It is doubly so for what it portends: the return of rising crime rates as juvenile offenders mature into even more hardened adult criminals, and as the population of young people swells.
Some youthful offenders are already hardened. For them, it's hard to quarrel with some of the get-tougher provisions of juvenile-justice restructuring approved by the 1996 General Assembly and signed by Gov. George Allen. Juveniles 14 or older charged with murder will now be automatically tried as adults; those charged with other violent crimes can be tried as adults at the discretion of prosecutors.
But imprisoning juveniles, however necessary in some cases, is also horribly expensive.
The direct expense of incarcerating someone - the nationwide average in the United States is about $30,000 per inmate per year - is one kind of cost. Another is the cost, when intervention comes too little or too late, of opportunities lost. This is the cost to victims of crimes not prevented that might have been, and the cost to offenders of lives not turned around that might have been.
At the state level, this year's juvenile-justice reform in Virginia also included new money for community-based juvenile-corrections programs, for more counseling of first-time offenders and for more probation officers. These are steps in the right direction.
At the local level, it hardly seems a coincidence that Roanoke has both a high rate of arrests of curfew violators and runaways, suggesting a tendency toward early police intervention, and stable or declining rates of serious juvenile crime that counter the national trend. Taking heed of trouble when it first arises in milder form can spare far worse pain later.
LENGTH: Short : 44 linesby CNB