ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 21, 1995 TAG: 9512210053
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
IF REASON prevails over partisanship, General Assembly Democrats, who still enjoy marginal control of the legislature, will recognize that many of Gov. George Allen's proposals for reforming the juvenile-justice system have merit.
They will resist the temptation to scrap the entire package to further humble Allen or to deny a legislative victory to Attorney General Jim Gilmore, the Republicans' likely nominee for governor in 1997 and the chief architect of the Allen plan. Similarly, GOP lawmakers will recognize that many proposals in the Democrats' competing set of reforms also have merit.
Fusing the best of both into a comprehensive package would best serve the public as well as the youth who enter the system. Recommendations that do neither should be unceremoniously dumped - and that includes the Allen-Gilmore centerpiece proposal to make adult trials mandatory for all juveniles 14 or older who are charged with violent crimes.
Make no mistake: We agree with the premise behind the recommendation - the acknowledgment that some juveniles are hardened, criminal thugs and dangerous psychopaths, not mere innocents gone temporarily astray. If only for the protection of the rest of us, violent and incorrigible types must be put away for longer periods than they often are today.
But, as this newspaper's Kids & Crime series of stories recently pointed out, trying a juvenile in adult court does not guarantee that will be the outcome. Of 412 juveniles sent to Circuit Court in 1992, 25 percent received no incarceration.
The fundamental problem with the proposal is its mandatory aspect. Not every teen who commits a violent crime is unrepentant or unsalvageable, or should be locked up in a special facility until age 18, then thrown in with hardened criminals in an adult prison. Sometimes mitigating circumstances should be taken into account, especially where youngsters are concerned.
State law already permits adult trials for 14-year-olds; to purge all flexibility from the law serves no good purpose.
Indeed, in other states that have tried it, crime rates haven't significantly come down. Studies show that juveniles tried as adults have a higher recidivism rate once out of prison. And 78 percent of Virginia's juvenile-court judges who responded to a survey oppose mandatory adult trials. Their opinion shouldn't be discounted.
Lawmakers ought to produce a package of reforms that promote prevention over punishment - but with incarceration included as a form of prevention when it's a good bet a juvenile will go out and hurt more people. The reforms should focus on increased intervention, but at earlier stages of life paths that lead to criminality.
Among the Allen-Gilmore proposals that lawmakers should support:
A greater role for public schools in preventing juvenile crime. (This should include a crackdown on school truancy, as recommended by the Democrats' study panel.)
More military-style boot camps for juvenile offenders.
Facilities to house violent and chronic offenders separately from others sentenced to juvenile jails. Gilmore is on target about this: ``Today's shoplifters and egg-throwers cannot learn to change their ways when they're bunking with a murderer.''
It's like schooling them for careers of crime. The system cries out for reform, never mind the party labels attached to it.
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