DATE: Sunday, April 27, 1997                TAG: 9704250011

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial

                                            LENGTH:   50 lines

JUVENILE JUSTICE STABILITY NEEDED

Prosecutors were given new license last year to transfer juveniles to adult court for trial. Critics worried that the perils of adult prisons were about to be visited upon a huge group of youthful offenders.

Fortunately, the alarm appears to have been unjustified. Prosecutors, with rare exceptions, are evaluating juveniles on a case-by-case basis, and they are deciding that the juvenile system is the proper venue for most. When juveniles do wind up in adult court, it is usually because their crimes are heinous enough to have landed them there even before the new rules took effect.

It's still too early for a full assessment. But the judiciousness with which reform apparently is being implemented is a positive note for a juvenile-justice system that has had its share of bad publicity.

Yet another setback came last week when Marvin L. Garner abruptly resigned as head of the Department of Juvenile Justice, citing interference from his predecessor (and now his boss), Secretary of Public Safety Patricia L. West.

Garner, a retired Chesterfield County juvenile judge who had served just two months in the post, had won the admiration of staff members because of his decisive leadership. But in a letter of resignation, Garner said West ``has made it clear to me, in the presence of my key staff, that she is the control person for DJJ, not me.''

As a former judge, Garner may have bristled at taking direction. He should have recognized that bureaucrats do not have the luxury of unsupervised decision-making. Even so, a weakness of the Allen administration has been the tendency of some cabinet members to want to run day-to-day operations in the departments they oversee. If West has joined that group, she should back off.

The larger issue is the damage that such internal bickering does to a fragile department. Just 6 years old, the juvenile-justice agency already has undergone three name changes. An interim director was named this week and a permanent replacement is promised soon. That means the agency is on track to have had four directors in three months. Such confusion is discouraging to workers.

Stability is desperately needed in the state's handling of wayward youth. The impact of this population on the commonwealth is too profound for them to be treated haphazardly or as an afterthought.

A new director for the Department of Juvenile Justice must be named quickly and should be given the authority to run the department. Micromanaging from higher up the chain of command is inconsistent with the stated philosophy of this administration. The care that prosecutors apparently are taking in evaluating youths who come before them is admirable. It should serve as a model for the state officials who oversee juvenile justice.

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