THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 20, 1994 TAG: 9406200027
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940620 LENGTH: Long
Two Hampton teenagers get into a fight in a high school hallway. One of the boys chases the other past the cafeteria, which is bustling with lunch-hour students, and into a parking lot. The aggressor, a 15-year-old, pulls out a knife and fatally stabs his classmate in the neck. He did it, he says, to protect his brother from a bully.
{REST} A Virginia Beach 16-year-old, with not enough to do and looking for spare cash, decides to rob a pizza deliveryman. The 16-year-old pulls a gun, asks for money, and pretends he is going to let the man escape. Instead, he shoots the driver in the chest. The man lives, even though the bullet rips through his heart, diaphragm and liver.
And it all happened in October 1993. Violent crime by children has become much more common in Hampton Roads. Juveniles, those younger than 18, are arrested twice as often for violent crime as they were in the mid-1980s in every area city except Chesapeake, according to an analysis of arrest data by The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star.
By the end of 1993, the juvenile violent-crime arrest rate - which measures arrests for murders, rapes, aggravated assaults and robberies, and adjusts for population - had shown a discouraging increase over 1986 levels. In Portsmouth, the rate more than tripled. Hampton, Norfolk and Suffolk had rates that more than doubled.
In Virginia Beach and Newport News, the rates were almost twice what they were in 1986. The Chesapeake rate had bounced around since 1986, but in 1993 it was lower than in 1986.
The raw numbers are just as alarming as the juvenile crime rates - in some cases even more so. Portsmouth has had a 211 percent increase in the number of violent felonies committed by children since 1986. The increases in Virginia Beach and Hampton both exceeded 100 percent. Newport News, Norfolk and Suffolk showed increases well above the state average of about 50 percent. Again, only Chesapeake - with an 8 percent increase - was close to its level of 1986.
Hampton Roads is not alone. The regional trend in violent crime by children is in line with what is happening nationally.
``There is a real problem of too much violence in this country,'' said Melissa Sickmund, a senior research associate at the National Center for Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh. ``And too much is committed by kids.''
According to a report by the Justice Department, the juvenile violent-crime arrest rate ``broke out of its historic range and by 1992 had reached its highest level in the last 20 years.'' In just five years, from 1988 to 1992, the Justice Department said, the national juvenile violent-crime index increased by 38 percent.
Some experts believe that the rising numbers are a natural result of a society where overall violent crime - both for juveniles and adults - has been climbing steadily.
And those who study youth crime say the breakdown of the nuclear family, easy access to handguns and a society fascinated with sex and violence all contribute to an explosive environment.
The Department of Justice has concluded that adults were responsible for more than 80 percent of the growth in violent crime in the past 10 years. Juveniles, the department said, ``are not driving the violent-crime trends. However, their responsibility for the growth of violent crime . . . has increased.''
There is some evidence that while children are committing more violent offenses in Hampton Roads, their share of all reported crime is not increasing.
In 1986, almost 26 percent of all robberies were committed by juveniles. That is almost the same percentage of robberies committed by juveniles in 1993. That figure dipped to a low of 15 percent in 1989, before climbing back to 26 percent in 1992.
Relatively few children are involved in rape, arrest statistics show. And the number involved in serious assault cases varies greatly from year to year.
But murder rates tell a different story. The percentage of murders committed by youths in Hampton Roads has almost tripled since 1986 - from about 7 percent to almost 18 percent.
The number of murders, although small when compared to crimes like robbery and aggravated assault, also points to the seriousness of the problem. In 1986 there were eight juvenile arrests for murder in Hampton Roads. In 1993, there were 34.
That mirrors the national trend, said Sickmund of the Pittsburgh-based youth crime center. ``Young kids from 15 to 22 have had an extreme increase in murder,'' she said.
And the prospect for the future is bleak, experts say, primarily because the number of males ages 13 to 17 in Virginia actually reached a 20-year low in 1990.
In 1991, the number of young males in Virginia started increasing. It is expected to climb 30 percent by the year 2005, from 200,000 to 260,000. Young males commit the overwhelming majority of serious juvenile crime.
``I don't see it getting any better,'' said Jim Woolf, deputy director of court services for the Virginia Beach Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. ``And from a personal standpoint, I am more afraid of going to the mall and going into a parking lot alone.''
Sickmund blames handguns and the relatively easy access that juveniles have to them. Nationwide, from 1987 to 1991, the number of homicides committed by juveniles with firearms doubled, Sickmund said.
``That is the closest thing I can find showing that each individual event is more violent than in the past,'' Sickmund said. ``The one thing that goes to that is the use of guns.''
According to the Department of Justice, one in five high school students in 1990 reported carrying a weapon at least once during the past month. One in 20 had carried a firearm.
In 1991, juveniles accounted for more than one out of five weapon arrests. Black youths were arrested for weapons violations at a rate triple that of white youths.
More restrictive gun laws are only a small part of the effort to change violent juvenile behavior. At the School of Social Work at the University of Washington in Seattle, J. David Hawkins has found that specific factors place young people at risk for certain behaviors, including violent behavior.
By taking what he calls a ``risk focus'' approach, Hawkins has found that behaviors like drug abuse can be altered significantly. He believes the same kind of approach may be true for violent behavior.
Risk factors include homes in crime-infested neighborhoods, negative attitudes toward the police, family conflict, anti-social behavior in school and rebelliousness.
``We are trying to translate this knowledge base into a system, so that communities can develop an approach,'' Hawkins said. ``It can no longer be left up to law enforcement. There is still a group of kids showing up in the juvenile courts that are contributing to crime and drug problems. These kids are being exposed to a high level of risk factors. They are capable of doing anything. They don't feel bonded.''
Hawkins has shown that by making sure juveniles know what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior, and by creating bonds between juveniles and institutions, especially schools, anti-social behavior can be reduced.
Field demonstrations are under way, Hawkins said, in 18 communities, with plans to expand to scores of other localities in Oregon, Maine, Texas, Kansas and Illinois.
Closer to home, the University of Virginia has joined forces with the FBI, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services and the Virginia Crime Prevention Center, along with other Virginia colleges, to develop the Virginia Youth Aggression and Youth Violence Project.
``You have kids frightened, parents frightened and teachers frightened,'' said Dyanne S. Bostain, the youth violence project director. ``Even if it is only the perception of fear, that is enough to interfere with the educational process.''
Bostain said the Virginia project will be producing a television program and will be going nationwide next year.
``There is a general awareness being built and people are beginning to address the issue,'' Bostain said. ``That is very positive.''
{KEYWORDS} JUVENILE CRIMINAL CRIME MURDER JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM
by CNB