ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997 TAG: 9701220015
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
AS THE Roanoke-based Virginia CARES program has shown, society benefits when adult inmates who are released from Virginia prisons are helped to make the often-difficult transition back to community life. Those receiving counseling, assistance in finding work and other forms of support during the readjustment are less likely to commit new crimes that land them back in prison.
Why not share this preventive medicine with another group of ex-cons - youthful offenders released from juvenile correctional facilities? Doing so could improve the odds of youngsters maturing into productive citizens instead of becoming repeat offenders and career criminals.
Unfortunately, while many states, including Virginia, are cracking down harder on juvenile crime and incarcerating more juveniles, few have developed effective follow-up programs. A recent survey by the National Association of Child Advocates found that states spend about 60 percent of their juvenile-justice funds on institutional placements for youthful offenders, but only about 4 percent on post-release programs.
Parole officers and transition counselors usually have such heavy caseloads that the attention they can give their charges is sorely limited. And families may be unable or unwilling to make much of an effort. Often, family situations helped lead kids astray of the law in the first place.
Some child-welfare advocates believe a source of help may be right under our noses: the public schools already in place in every community.
Sure, parole officers traditionally push released juvenile offenders to go back to school. But many of these youngsters have fallen far behind academically - if they had ever functioned academically on a level with their peers. And, being jailbirds, they may have a harder time fitting in with classmates. Most need more specialized help and attention reconnecting with schools than either correctional or educational systems are currently giving them.
In the Norfolk area, schools and other organizations dealing with children are testing the premise that such special help can reduce juvenile-crime recidivism rates. They are participating in a four-state demonstration project, financed by the Justice Department and overseen by Johns Hopkins University. It offers intensive ``after care'' with the aim of quickly putting juveniles released from correctional facilities on a solid education track. It also helps them deal with other, including family-based, problems.
No, this isn't easy. Results doubtless will be mixed. Even this kind of intervention, for many juveniles, will come too late. And schools already are burdened enough without having to act, on their own, as parole officers.
The alternative is all too often, however, to send kids back to the streets, utterly alienated from school and with little hope for a better future. Surely, more intensive efforts to prevent educational failure and truancy among youngsters known to be at risk of resorting to criminal activity might prove cost-effective, even with the extra resources needed for schools.
Virginia government leaders should keep tabs on the Norfolk experiment. It just might offer one crime-prevention strategy that could be replicated statewide. Assuming, of course, we want to prevent crime as well as react to it.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 linesby CNB