THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 13, 1995 TAG: 9503100041
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 38 lines
No one needs reminding that youth crime is a societal cancer, but the reminders keep coming: A student at Virginia Beach's Salem High School, the second in a year, has been slain. Joseph D. Garcia III died March 6; a schoolmate and a former Salem pupil are charged with murder.
Accompanying a sense of grief over such tragedies as this one is, for many, a sense of helplessness. To counter the latter, the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Association is sponsoring a town hall meeting at Norfolk's Ruffner Middle School tomorrow at 6:30 p.m.
The topic is ``Turning Our Youth Away from Crime and Violence: A Community Challenge.'' In a keynote speech Darnell Moore, head football coach at Norfolk State University, will address the issue of children as criminals or as victims of crime. A panel representing police, public education, youth and family services, the church and juvenile law will conduct an open discussion.
Sponsors framed the issue this way: ``There is a belief that there are three categories of juveniles. One group will end up as hardened criminals in maximum-security prisons, no matter what is done. Another group will grow up to be the doctors, lawyers, teachers, responsible family persons, no matter what happens. The third group is the one that can go either way. They start out on the wrong side of the tracks but can be sidetracked to walk the straight and narrow. It is this latter group on which we should be spending our resources and trying to save.''
One town meeting won't achieve this, but it can add both awareness and understanding to what is as big a challenge as a community faces. by CNB