THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 1, 1995 TAG: 9512010003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
Governor Allen reports that Virginia needs a prison in which to confine juveniles convicted of violent crimes. He's surely right.
An approaching wave of male teenagers, from whose ranks come a disproportionate percentage of murderous criminals, virtually guarantees a surge in violent crime.
Mr. Allen is determined to lock up more juvenile perpetrators of serious crimes, a sentiment that a crime-weary populace endorses.
Violent juvenile offenders should be separated from nonviolent juvenile offenders, whom they could bully, and from adult offenders, whose influence would be malign.
Prisons, as everyone knows, are expensive. The 400-bed prison for violent juveniles that Mr. Allen projects would cost about $45 million. That capital cost would be in addition to $17 million to transform an existing juvenile-detention facility into one suitable for incarcerating violent juveniles by 1997. Virginia now confines about 1,000 juveniles. Five hundred more beds will be required by 1998.
Operating costs command more money than construction. Incarcerating juveniles is costlier than incarcerating adults. Because of education, vocational-training and counseling programs aimed at turning troubled youths around, Virginia spends about $40,000 a year on incarcerated juvenile offenders. Keeping adults behind bars averages $18,000.
And Virginia's incarceration rates for both adults and juveniles are among the highest in the country. That may be why the Old Dominion is markedly safer than most other states. Del Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk, chairman of the General Assembly's Commission on Youth, notes that less than 3 percent of juveniles arrested in Virginia are charged with violent crimes.
But these realities mean little to Virginians when violent crime by juveniles grows steadily worse. The FBI reports that nationwide 1,193 youths under 18 were arrested for murder in 1985, 2,508 in 1990 and 2,982 in 1994; 28,688 juveniles were arrested for robbery in 1985, 33,582 in 1990 and 45,046 in 1994; 32,809 were arrested for aggravated assault in 1985, 50,425 in 1990 and 64,648 in 1994.
No quick fix is in sight. The social-welfare programs of several decades have not purchased domestic tranquillity and safe streets, so there's no clamor for more governmental programs designed to save children from becoming criminals.
More attention to crime-prevention strategies - among them, barring over-the-counter purchases of ammunition by minors and harsh penalties for adults who recruit children to commit drug and other crimes or leave guns where children can get their hands on them - would save blood, tears and money, including tax money. But there's no will to take such steps. Lamentable. by CNB