THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 15, 1996 TAG: 9602150001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By WALTER F. SULLIVAN
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
There are two sets of bills before the General Assembly that are intimately related. One is receiving major public attention. The other is not. One addresses symptoms of a problem. The other gets at underlying causes.
After a year of study and several committees' work, the Commission on Family Violence Prevention introduced bipartisan legislation designed to protect victims of domestic violence and help ensure their safety. This legislation calls for mandatory arrest in cases of domestic violence, makes it easier for victims to obtain restraining orders, assures use of the family automobile by the victim, and calls for funds to provide support services for the legislation to be effective. In the past three years, well over 14,000 Virginia children were victims of abuse and neglect. Statistics from the Virginia Department of Social Services on spouse abuse show that funded agencies served 28,650 women - many with children - from July 1994 to June 1995.
Meanwhile, the Governor's Commission on Juvenile Justice and the Commission on Youth spent a year studying the juvenile justice system in Virginia and now present the public with a highly publicized compromise legislative package. Primary emphasis is given to the 3 percent of the juvenile population who commit serious violent crimes. Who are these 3 percent? Studies show that a disproportionate number of children convicted of serious crimes are poor, school dropouts, learning disabled and victims of child abuse and family violence. We know that there is a high correlation between physical and sexual abuse or neglect and future delinquency and adult criminal behavior.
Children are violent for a reason. Rather than focus on the more politically popular ``get tough on crime'' legislation, Virginia needs to put energy, creativity and scarce financial resources into treating a major cause of violence in children - domestic violence in the home.
Instead, the core component of the juvenile-justice legislation focuses on offenders once they are in the system by expanding the possibility of trying and sentencing children as adults. The compromise proposes that juveniles 14 years and older who commit certain violent felonies should automatically be tried and sentenced as adults. This does not allow for differences in culpability and personal history among children charged with the same offense.
Since 1994, Virginia law has allowed juveniles judges to transfer children as young as 14 to the circuit court to be tried and sentenced as adults. In 1994 and 1995, close to 400 children were transferred. Virginia currently ranks eighth in the nation for per-capita transfer and conviction of juvenile offenders in circuit court.
The 1995 Virginia Commonwealth University Public Opinion Poll found 80% of Virginians felt that judges, rather than prosecutors, should decide whether a juvenile is tried as an adult. Current law allows the prosecutor to appeal to the circuit court if the juvenile judge denies transfer. Without having shown that the current system is not working, why would Virginia legislators now want to give prosecuting attorneys discretion in choosing to file cases directly in circuit court for certain 14-year-olds? Is it appropriate for a prosecutor to make a unilateral decision of this magnitude? I think not.
It is appalling that Virginia would even consider the execution of children. Our own Virginia history shows that all of the 18 juveniles executed in Virginia have been African American. The compromise legislation would allow Virginia to sentence 15-year-olds to death. The state does not think 15-year-olds are mature enough to get a driver's license, yet this legislation would have us believe that they have sufficient moral maturity to make a decision deserving of death.
We know that early intervention and prevention are the least-costly, most-effective means to reduce juvenile crime. Virginia should support legislation like that coming from the Family Violence Prevention Commission and fully fund its budget requests. Let us be slow to pass legislation that will not in the end reduce violent crime among our juvenile population. Let us be swift to pass legislation that will treat some of the causes of violent crime. In the long run, Virginia will be safer if we treat the causes of violence and not merely its symptoms. MEMO: Mr. Sullivan is bishop of Richmond. by CNB