THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 21, 1995 TAG: 9511210001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By PATTY MASTERSON
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Del. Bill Mims of the General Assembly's 32nd District and member of the Governor's Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform writes (Another View, Oct. 21) that ``The epidemic of violent crime by teenagers in Virginia'' produces statistics that ``stun.''
He is right.
The juvenile-justice system, he says, ``is broken,'' and ``the governor's commission has recently endorsed 27 common-sense recommendations to combat serious juvenile crime more effectively.'' More to the point, however, kids should not be committing violent crimes at all, and we should be spending at least as much time and money trying to prevent their doing so as we spend trying to decide what to do after the fact.
Delegate Mims and the commission's interim report (Oct. 5), however, wax eloquent on the subject of punishment and offer a hefty list of ``things to do'' to the objects of their attention. Interestingly, both Delegate Mims and the interim report fail to mention the relationship between the juvenile behavior they deplore, the juvenile laws they intend to correct and the professional drug dealers' employment of kids to do their dirty work. (``We'll pay you well, and they can't send you to prison, even if they catch you. And here. Try some, if you like.'') Virginia has no law enhancing the felony charge for an adult who conspires with or solicits a minor to commit a felony, nor do these commissioners, so eager to punish juveniles more stringently, suggest enacting such a law.
In fact, both Delegate Mims and the interim report fail to mention a number of relationships having some bearing on the ``epidemic.'' They lament the decrease in age of juveniles committing crimes and the increase in the violence of those crimes. They acknowledge that ``criminologists may point to they apparently see it as beyond their charge to address that cause, and they draw no relationship whatever between the increase in the availability of firearms and the corresponding violence of juvenile crime.
They apparently see no relationship between the administration's failure to support legislation prohibiting the sale of ammunition to minors and the increased juvenile misuse of firearms.
They see no relationship between increasingly violent juvenile crime and the Allen administration's failure to support legislation requiring the sale of trigger locks with firearms.
They see no relationship between an administration that fails to support legislation requiring proof of training in safe use and storage of weapons and the number of firearms in the hands of juveniles, between the failure to punish criminally adults whose careless storage of firearms leads to juvenile death, injury or crime.
They see no relationship between increasingly violent juvenile crime and their insistence on a concealed carrying law that will increase the number of handguns accessible to juveniles. They dismiss the cause behind the act.
Yes, incorrigible youths should be removed from the general school population.
Yes, ``adult crimes'' warrant ``adult punishment.''
But the truth of the matter is that the society that encourages incorrigible acts through its indifference and its negligence has no right to sit in judgment on those whose deprivation and despair it ignores. Governor Allen, Delegate Mims and the commission would do well to look to the roots of juvenile crime. They would find it much less costly - and probably far more profitable - in the long run. MEMO: Ms. Masterson, a retired schoolteacher, is vice president of Virginians
Against Handgun Violence. by CNB