THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601050010
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
When legislators convene for General Assembly 1996, one of their top priorities will be overhauling an outdated juvenile-justice system.
Most agree that the rules that worked on kid criminals in the 1950s, when the state's juvenile-court system was devised, don't cut it today. But that's where consensus ends and posturing begins.
Republican Gov. George F. Allen has offered glitzy graphs and charts citing a dramatic increase in juvenile crime in Virginia - a slick presentation branded with a chilling quotation warning of a rising juvenile population and the doom to follow. ``Get ready,'' it taunts.
Good stuff for newsprint and soundbites. But the most violent, the most hopeless, the most frightening of juvenile offenders represent only about 3 percent of juvenile arrests. And the percentage rise in Virginia's juvenile murder rate appears to have risen dramatically compared to national numbers only because we started so low.
The Republicans seem to be clinging to war-on-crime rhetoric that has been popular with the voters for years. This time they target kids. The governor's proposed budget calls for millions of dollars for adult and juvenile institutions and very little for less harsh alternatives.
Governor Allen calls for automatic adult trials for 14-year-olds who are violent or chronic offenders and for violent teens sentenced as adults to live in a prison run by the Department of Corrections.
When juvenile judges met at a conference last summer, some privately said they feared juvenile-justice reform would fall victim to politics.
They were right to worry.
But what about all the nonviolent kids out there? Judges see them in their courtrooms; citizens recognize them as the kids up the street or maybe the ones under their own roof.
In a recent statewide survey, Virginians said they want government to focus on prevention or rehabilitation, not enforcement or punishment. They want to break the cycle of crime, not just warehouse kids. Most of the judges, prosecutors, court officials and police polled for another survey said no single function of the juvenile-justice system should rank above another. That makes more sense than the Allen plan to put public safety above all else.
An alternative is available. The Virginia Commission on Youth, chaired by Del. Jerrauld Jones, D-Norfolk, considers public safety within the traditional framework of rehabilitation. Under its recommendations, discretion would remain in the hands of judges when it comes to trying violent juveniles as adults. And convicted youths would stay in the juvenile system, perhaps longer than currently allowed, with provisions for transfer to the adult system.
Most of the commission's suggestions deal with community and intervention programs. Their approach seems reasoned - more aligned with experts and the public. They did not sink to statistical scare tactics.
Inevitably, there will be compromise and political horse trading before reform is enacted. But at this point in the debate, the Jones Commission is way out in front. by CNB