THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220004
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 73 lines
The mighty finger of the federal government is about to poke into the affairs of the Virginia Department of Corrections. This is bad news for those who view any federal intrusion with alarm, but good news for those who'd like answers to allegations that the Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center is a hotbed of violence and abuse.
The probe is also an embarrassment for a state that a decade or so ago enjoyed a national reputation for forward-thinking treatment of juvenile offenders.
Despite bipartisan agreement on a juvenile-justice-reform package during last winter's General Assembly, partisan name-calling involving prisons and criminal justice remains high. Democrats and Republicans sometimes seem more interested in public perceptions of who's tough and who's not than in whether the job is getting done, fair and square.
The Beaumont facility in Powhatan County near Richmond is the largest of the state's seven juvenile facilities. It also is home to twice as many youths as intended. Built to house 200, its rated capacity is 250 and its current occupancy is 402. The overcrowding is a byproduct of grim changes in society and an inadequate government response. As juvenile crime escalated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, lawmakers reacted with tougher sentences. More youths were committing offenses; offenders were being locked up longer. Cell-building didn't keep pace with the change. Treatment and incarceration alternatives weren't in vogue.
``You can't have growing numbers (of offenders) and longer terms of confinement and no extra money for treatment resources, and not expect it to be a pressure cooker,'' says Linda Nablo of the Action Alliance for Virginia's Children and Youth.
Voila, allegations by parents and juveniles that youths are placed in isolation for long periods, that guards are abusive, that mental-health treatment is a joke. Meanwhile, personnel complain that juvenile offenders are increasingly violent and their jobs fraught with danger. Many lawmakers and state officials who have toured the facility recently are appalled.
A $25 million, 300-bed facility is scheduled to open at Beaumont next year. The juvenile-justice-reform package that takes effect in July includes money for community alternatives and placement of several hundred nonviolent youths in private facilities. That should help alleviate overcrowding but will not eliminate it. According to official estimates, the system will still be about 500 beds short at the turn of the century.
The Allen administration's initial response to the federal inquiry has been a defensive one. Secretary of Public Safety Jerry Kilgore suggests that it is politically motivated. The Clinton administration may want to detract from the attention Gov. George Allen has received for the state's juvenile-justice reform, he says.
This is a reach. The reform was a bipartisan effort. The road to the current difficulties was paved with both Republican and Democrat hands. Much as Virginia would like to handle its own problems, officials should listen carefully to what the Justice Department has to say. This probe should not disintegrate into a federal/state standoff, but should be taken as a chance to assess what's wrong and move forward.
Lives may be at stake, literally - those of errant juveniles, of the men and women who guard them and of a public that sooner or later will have most of these young people back in its its midst. by CNB