THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412180067
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
A bipartisan task force has called for the overhaul of the state's juvenile incarceration system, which some task-force members described as outmoded and intolerable.
``There are a lot of conditions statewide that are not acceptable for us, as human beings. It's not the fault of the people who run those facilities,'' Del. Thomas M. Jackson Jr., D-Hillsville and the task force chairman, said Friday.
The task force of the Virginia Commission on Youth was formed in 1992, shortly after a consultant described conditions inside the state's 17 detention homes as ``the stuff of Dickens.''
Under the task-force proposal, each locality would receive special financial support, based on crime trends, and more money would be made available for detention-home construction. The plan also provides more money for alternatives to incarceration, such as electronic monitoring.
The task force estimated the reform will cost as much as $7 million for the first half of 1996, and $14 million the following year.
Nancy Ross, the commission's executive director, said the state now gives more than $23 million a year in block grants to local governments for juvenile confinement and punishment.
``To simply redistribute that $23 million, it will not work'' because the needs are too great, she said.
The state's detention homes have 532 beds housing 600 to 700 juveniles.
In late 1992, the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center warned that the crowding was endangering the health and safety of children.
Detention homes serve as the equivalent of adult jails for juveniles and are used primarily to securely house youths awaiting trial. The state's seven youth correctional centers serve as the equivalent of prisons for juveniles. Six are in the Richmond area.
The state now has space planned or under construction for an additional 173 beds by July 1997 at a cost to state and local governments of $30 million.
The proposal would permit every locality to join and receive a cut of the state money. No participating locality or regional entity would receive less money than it gets now; many localities which now receive nothing would be getting money for the first time.
It would be up to the localities to use the money as they see fit. However, while the state would provide 50 percent of the cost for incarceration, it would pay 75 percent for alternatives to incarceration. Unused money could be used the following year. by CNB