THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510150164
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: ELECTION '95
THE CITIZENS' AGENDA
The Virginian-Pilot has asked people around the state what their major
concerns are leading up to the Nov. 7 election. This is one in a
series of in-depth reports on those concerns: Today's topic: Public
Safety<
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 279 lines
Statistics show, however, that Virginia is a relatively safe place to live. Last year, 4,074 serious crimes were reported for each 100,000 residents.
The odds were about one in 11,400, but Earl Harris was the one.
The 25-year-old shipyard worker was near his girlfriend's house in Portsmouth last April when an unknown robber fired a bullet into his head. Before Harris died, the killer stole the change from his pockets.
Raised in a public housing complex, in jail on drug charges early in adult life, Harris seemed a likely candidate for violence. But relatives say his was a bitter reality that didn't have to be. When Harris got out of jail, he left the projects to live in Virginia Beach with aunt Gloria Branton, and after two years he had shaken his more reckless habits. He had a car, a job and a fresh optimism, relatives said. He died just when life was looking up.
``It seemed like for those two years, he had hope. He had some incentive to start making his life better on his own,'' said Branton, 43.
``Part of me says to make the punishment tougher for people who break the law, but you can see we need to give them some kind of hope, too. Then, if they still fall by the wayside, at least you can say you tried. We have to try something. It's a real serious problem.''
From a statistical perspective, Virginia's crime problem isn't all that bad. Last year, 4,074 serious crimes were reported for each 100,000 state residents - lower than in most Southern states. Virginia is in many ways safer today than it was five years ago.
But odds aside, people are scared. Virginians are being robbed, raped and killed every day somewhere in the state, always unexpectedly, often at random.
In fact, citizens around the state are worried about crime more than any other public issue, according to a poll sponsored this summer by The Virginian-Pilot and Virginia Commonwealth University. Public safety bested even education among topics of concern. Some 67 percent of the people polled called crime a ``critical'' problem.
Citizens weren't nearly so rabid, however, about spending money to address crime - at least not in the traditional ways. School construction far outranked prison construction in order of priority. Most Virginians would rather pay for a new road than a new jail.
The seeming disparity can be explained by sentiments voiced in conversations between citizens and The Virginian-Pilot throughout the state this summer.
While crime was often a pervasive theme, rarely was it the issue. Citizens considered violence one of society's principal ills, but mostly as a product of failed school systems and a lack of quality jobs.
``You don't need prisons if we put more money into the education system because you will get the kids interested in other things besides crime,'' said Jane Baum, a 39-year-old dental hygienist from Virginia Beach.
``I think a prison is a monument to the failure of stopping crime,'' said John Byrne, a 54-year-old attorney and engineer from Vienna. ``If you stop crime, you don't need a prison.''
To be sure, Virginians hardly gush with sympathy for lawbreakers. Joe White, from Pulaski, suggested the government buy a chain of islands and construct communities for criminals. ``If people choose to live like animals, treat them like animals,'' he said. ``Ship 'em off, drop 'em off and say `here it is.' Put the murderers together. Sooner or later they'll kill each other off.''
But citizens typically spoke of tough prisons and harsh sentences as simply part of the solution. Or, at worst, as part of the problem.
``The best way to deal with crime is to create a society in which it's not necessary,'' said Bob Whiteman, 43, from Herndon.
``What are we doing to prevent crime?'' asked Glenwood P. Roane, a 64-year-old attorney from Vienna. ``What kind of programs are the legislatures able to fashion that take us into an area in which we are becoming productive people in Virginia, instead of using resources for the stupid stuff?''
THE BACKGROUND
Change driven by the administration with broad Democratic support
The concerns that citizens express about prevention and feeling safe haven't been lost on candidates for the state's 140 seats in the General Assembly.
Republicans, who tout their efforts to build new prisons and keep criminals locked up longer, have also trumpeted prevention efforts and victims-rights legislation.
Democrats, meanwhile, characterize Gov. George F. Allen's $408 million proposal for prison construction as a direct assault on the state's education budget.
Election-year fuss notwithstanding, however, the state's treatment of public safety issues has been largely bipartisan. Allen and Attorney General James Gilmore often have driven the agenda, but with broad Democrat support.
And in the two years since Allen was elected on the promise of making Virginia a miserable place to be a criminal, Virginia's criminal justice system has turned decidedly toward one centered on punishment rather than prevention.
Among the changes:
Abolition of parole.
Enactment of ``Three strikes, you're out'' law, requiring mandatory life sentences after a third conviction for a violent crime.
Approval of prototype ``supermax'' prisons, in which guards will be armed with guns.
Lowering of drunken-driving limit to a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level.
Expansion of the list of crimes punishable by death, and approval of a time limit on death-row appeals.
Lowering to 14 the age at which a juvenile can be tried as an adult.
Changing sentencing procedures to let juries know a criminal's background before imposing a sentence.
The number of inmates in Virginia prisons - now about 25,000 - has more than doubled in the past 10 years, and is expected to double again by 2005 as a result of the state's broad crackdown. Allen proposed $408 million in prison construction this year, a plan that was scaled back by General Assembly Democrats who called it unnecessarily aggressive - particularly since Allen proposed to borrow the money.
``The criminal apologists so often say it's society's fault - a complete abdication of the concept of personal responsibility,'' Allen said during the opening address of his two-day ``Crime Summit'' in Richmond on Thursday. ``Everyone and everything is to blame except the criminal.
``Clearly, there are conflicting philosophies. But what we've said is that there's a difference between right and wrong, and we've heard enough excuses. So long as people continue to live in fear of violence, public safety will be a central priority.''
POINTS OF DISCUSSION
Talk swirls around prisons, programs and money matters.
Public safety had been generally free from contention before the Democrats balked at approving the prisons Allen wanted. Now it has become a prominent election-year debate.
The question: Whether Allen's tough stand on crime has drifted beyond the practical, in a year when partisan control of the government could be at stake. The political value of an agenda perceived as an attack on crime is undisputed. But some Democrats think parole abolition and other recent reforms are punishment enough, and that the state is at risk of ignoring the root causes of criminal behavior.
Critics rail about Allen's prison construction plans the most. The governor wanted to build seven new prisons in the next five years, which he called the minimum needed to bear the growing load of inmates. The General Assembly approved just one-fourth of his request, offering only planning money for four prisons Allen wanted to fund fully. The governor, they said, was rushing things.
Some of the prisons Allen wanted to finance didn't have locations picked out yet. One project cost $12 million in unexpected site preparations. Construction bids came in higher than expected for others, partly because contractors calculated the penalties they would incur rushing to meet the administration's deadlines.
Meanwhile, the state has cut budgets for running prisons it already operates - sometimes at the expense of rehabilitation programs. A counseling program for sex offenders, which costs $4,500 a year for each inmate, was quick to fall, for instance. When corrections officials were directed to trim spending, they argued that the program didn't work.
Republican candidates say all the criticism is simply evidence that the Democrats are soft on criminals. A GOP television commercial airing around the state claims Democrats are against keeping violent criminals in prison - a statement they justify by the thwarting of Allen's prison construction package. Some states with inadequate prison space have been forced to release felons to meet prison housing standards. Candidates plugging a tough-on-crime image are therefore unapologetic about risking counseling programs to keep criminals behind bars.
``You have to have priorities, and ours has been for the best form of crime prevention available: locking up the violent offenders,'' said Jerry Kilgore, Allen's public safety secretary.
``No other prevention program out there was able to demonstrate the results that abolition of parole could.''
A controversial study conducted last year by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council claimed a clear relationship between increased incarceration and lower crime rates. The states that locked up the most criminals from 1980 to 1992 generally showed the biggest drops in crime, the study reported.
``If the question is should you incarcerate people or should you finance prevention programs, the answer is you do both,'' said Tim Beauchemin, director of legislation and policy for the organization. ``But you can't diminish the impact that incarceration has on crime rates.''
On conventional crime-prevention programs, Allen administration officials contend the state spends about $350 million a year. Critics say that figure is actually much lower, because the estimate includes some federal money and spending on programs only marginally related to crime - such as certain school health care programs.
Indeed, many prevention programs cost only a few thousand dollars, and might involve simply hanging posters in schools. The Allen administration's prevention philosophy, in fact, would cost close to nothing. Over the next several years, plans call for targeting grant money to community-level programs like Neighborhood Watch, in the hope that they would eventually become self-supportive.
Plans call for eventually moving even some crime punishment responsibilities to local governments, to relieve the burdens on the state prisons. Officials still are studying various prison alternatives for non-violent felons.
Democrats have stressed some crime prevention efforts as part of their ``Good Schools (EQ) Good Jobs,'' such as laws designed to keep guns and drugs off school property. But even those use punishment as the primary deterrent.
One reason that crime prevention is given little weight, government leaders say, is the low effectiveness rates of many efforts to prevent crime. Even successful substance abuse programs, for instance, might keep only one in 10 participants off drugs.
But others argue that prevention programs aren't working because they are given short shrift by a government more interested in treating crime's symptoms than finding a cure.
Del. Jerrauld Jones, D-Norfolk, head of a legislative panel studying the juvenile justice system, suggested that prevention programs might no longer belong within the ``soft'' agencies like Social Services. He says the state should treat them as public safety programs - like corrections and the State Police.
``Child abuse, poverty and violence in the community are well-known causes of delinquency,'' Jones told a group of juvenile court judges in August.
``Until we are willing to make the commitment to respond to the conditions which breed delinquency, child abuse and unprepared and uncooperative parents, and provide the opportunity to help young people and their families get on the right track, we will have failed.''
THE EMERGING ISSUE
Juvenile justice reform likely to take center stage in 1996.
The debate over reform of the juvenile justice system is taking shape as next year's public safety priority in the General Assembly. Two commissions - the one chaired by Jones and another organized by the governor and headed by Gilmore - will make recommendations this year, some of which are expected to conflict.
Some legislators and activists are concerned that the proposals might be coming too fast - before the government completes a detailed review of juvenile crime statistics and programs. But Allen considers juvenile reform the next plank in his public safety agenda, so it will likely be debated in the legislature this January, ready or not.
Among the proposals:
Public access to juvenile court proceedings. Most juvenile hearings are closed to the public, a practice Gilmore's committee wants to stop. Jones' group might propose more-restricted access, such as opening proceedings only when violent crimes have been committed.
Treatment of juveniles as adults. The legislature last year allowed 14-year-olds to be tried as adults, and Gilmore's commission has proposed measures to encourage it. Jones' group has been more cautious, moving instead to create adequate punishments within the juvenile system.
Give judges more sentencing options. Both groups are preparing proposals for alternatives to placing juveniles in detention centers. Proposals include military-style camps, alternative schools for troublesome students and home detention.
Still, like most other states in the country, Virginia shows signs of improvement. After a frenetic jump in the crime rate in the late 1980s and early 1990s - fueled largely by the popularity of crack cocaine - overall crime rates have leveled off.
In fact, Virginia is one of the safest states in the South, according to figures from the U.S. Justice Department. Among Southern states, only Kentucky and West Virginia have fewer serious crimes per person.
Few expect the crime rate to do anything but rise, however, particularly considering the massive growth expected in the teenage population in the next 10 years. The rate of crimes committed by juveniles rose 21 percent in Virginia the last 13 years, while the national average dropped.
Already, Virginia's criminals are younger and better armed, statistics show. They are more involved in drugs every year.
And the crimes they commit are ever more likely to involve violence. It's less probably your car will be stolen, but more probable that you'll be robbed in the street. Odds are improving against your house being burgled. But there's more chance you'll be beaten, raped or murdered.
``No ones's ready to claim any victories,'' Kilgore said. ILLUSTRATION: Research by ROBERT LITTLE, graphic by ROBERT D. VOROS/The
Virginian-Pilot\ VIRGINIA'S SERIOUS CRIME INDEX
SOURCE: ``Crime in Virginia,'' report published by the Virginia
State Police
THE U.S. SERIOUS CRIME INDEX
SOURCE: ``Crime in the United States,'' published by the U.S.
Justice Department
VIRGINIS'S PRISON POPULATION
SOURCE: Department of Corrections
[For complete graphics, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: COMMUNITY CONVERSATION CRIME PUBLIC
SAFETY by CNB