THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 1, 1994 TAG: 9410010289
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
North Carolina's juvenile laws were written at a time when children were considered unlikely to commit violent crimes, Attorney General Mike Easley told a legislative commission Friday.
But ``Sweet 16'' isn't what it used to be.
``Let me say at the outset that our juvenile code does not work,'' Easley told the Juvenile Code Study Commission. ``It has not worked for some time. Juveniles neither respect it nor fear it.''
Easley said the state juvenile laws were revised in the 1970s, when children generally committed nonviolent property crimes. The thrust of the laws was to rehabilitate young people to keep them from committing violent crimes later in life.
``We have to rethink the basic assumptions in our juvenile code,'' Easley said. ``It is a myth that juveniles are less violent than adults. They are, in fact, more violent than adults.''
Statistics compiled by Easley's office showed that for 16-year-olds, 7.62 percent of all arrests involve violent crimes. Those crimes include murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery.
That is the highest percentage of violent crime arrests for any single age group. Among 17-year-olds, who are considered adults under North Carolina law, 7.12 percent of all arrests are for violent crimes.
Violent crimes make up 6.48 percent of all the arrests of children 15 and under. ``The truth is that you are 28 percent more likely to be assaulted, raped, robbed or murdered by a juvenile than an adult in North Carolina today,'' Easley said. ``More North Carolinians are being raped, robbed and assaulted by juveniles than ever before in the history of the state.''
Easley recommended several steps for the commission to consider in revising juvenile laws. Those include:
Allowing juvenile offenders to be photographed and fingerprinted, so they can be tracked like adult criminals by the justice system.
Allowing justice officials to share confidential information on young criminals with other law enforcement agencies.
Narrow use of boot camps to help give young criminals discipline and a chance to kick drug or alcohol habits.
Considering new ways of imprisoning young offenders so that they would have to ``earn and learn'' their way out. Such a system would require juveniles to be jailed until they earned a high school degree, kicked a drug habit or learned job skills.
Easley also urged the commission to consider special drug courts for young criminals. Those courts divert addicts from regular courts and require them to get treatment for their habit. Beating the habit, Easley said, could help them get out of crime.
``You can't look these kids in the eye and say, `We don't have $1,000 to spend on you now (for treatment), but we'll reserve a $100,000 jail cell for you later,''' Easley said. ``Not only is it bad policy, it's bad arithmetic.''
KEYWORDS: JUVENILE DELINQUENTS JUVENILE OFFENDERS
CRIME STATISTICS CRIME
by CNB