THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 16, 1994 TAG: 9406160521
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940616 LENGTH: PORTSMOUTH
Pretty much everyone at Gov. George Allen's town hall meeting on parole and sentencing reform in Portsmouth City Hall on Wednesday evening agreed that the criminal justice system needs to change.
{REST} But, while the politicians sound sure about how to do it, the public is not so certain yet.
Many of those in the crowded chambers echoed Dorothy Humphreys Soule, whose 15-year-old son, Paul, was knifed to death in a Suffolk high school in 1979 by another student.
Soule said the work of Allen's commission, which is hammering out a reform plan to present to a special session of the General Assembly this fall, ``is terrific.''
``We have to be able to say, `No. This is enough.' '' Soule said. ``Criminals have no race, no class, no culture, to us. They are just criminals.''
Yet the commission isn't going far enough, she said. The key to a safe future is reaching children before they become criminals.
``Where we've got to get them is in school. That's where,'' she said. ``If we wait until they're 10 years old, that's too late. Some say 5 years old is too late. It's got to start in the home, in the community, in the school.''
The audience applauded Soule and others who urged Allen to be tough on criminals.
Yet they also enthusiastically applauded Paul Gillis of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a prison counselor who asked how Allen planned to pay for it all.
``It all looks well and good right now,'' Gillis said. ``But our resources in the commonwealth are tight right now. Do we take everything we have and sink it into prisons? How do we manage our prisons? What do you do to help the young correctional officer trying to manage an inmate who knows he'll be in prison 40 years with no chance of getting out?''
Allen's plan, called ``Proposal X,'' has several parts. It would abolish parole in state prisons. It would begin ``truth in sentencing,'' meaning an inmate would serve almost exactly the term that is handed down at trial. And it aims to make those sentences longer for violent and repeat offenders.
Richard Cullen, co-chairman of the commission and a former federal prosecutor, said: ``We want to get your input and feedback that will help us fill in the details on this over the next two months. We've had tremendous response from the public, showing the seriousness of this issue.''
The plan is expected to concentrate on the ``violent few,'' that portion of the criminal population responsible for the most crimes and most likely to be repeat offenders.
Virginia Beach Police Chief Charles Wall said: ``You don't count the pages on the rap sheets of some of these people. You weigh them by the pound or measure them by the yard. You can get a hernia carrying them around.''
Soule believes the commission is only making a start, and she does not think it will be as easy as the politicians make it sound.
``There has to be a guide, a standard, for each child,'' she said.
{KEYWORDS} PAROLE
by CNB