ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601190093
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
THE RISING frequency and severity of juvenile crime have made juvenile justice a prospectively hot issue in this year's Virginia General Assembly session. Everyone opposes juvenile crime, of course, but not everyone agrees on how best to combat it: Focus on prevention or on punishment?
A crime prevented is obviously preferable to a crime unprevented and subsequently (and expensively) punished. But this prevention-punishment distinction, while often useful, also can oversimplify. Sometimes, for example, punishment is prevention, as when habitual violent criminals are given long prison terms that restrict their opportunities to commit more crimes.
Likewise, preventing juvenile crime - though better in the long run for all concerned, including taxpayers - isn't necessarily easy or inexpensive. Indeed, most of the work of prevention lies outside the realm of juvenile justice; and much of it is affected only indirectly by public policy. It usually must occur long before a young person finds himself in serious trouble.
Prevention is best begun early in a child's life, when values start to form. And it is better begun in early adolescence than later.
In a report this past fall, the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development said it concentrated on the earliest years of that age group because that is when "individuals adopt behavior patterns ... that can have lifelong significance." As the age of puberty continues to drop in well-fed Western societies, the age of early adolescence has dropped to as young as 10.
The report treats juvenile crime as just one of several manifestations of adolescent trouble. In its self-destructive effects, a young person's turning to violent crime is little different from his or her turning to substance addiction, unwed pregnancy or suicide - the rates of which also have been rising among the young.
Early adolescence has always been a formative and turbulent age - "a time of accelerated growth and change," to cite the report, "second only to infancy." What, in addition to the declining age of puberty (which does not necessarily coincide with a decline in the age at which good judgment is attained), is so different today?
Many sources of new stress on the young are frequently cited. The decline of the two-parent family and the rise of the two-worker family. The easy availability of firearms and drugs. The condition of inner-city schools. The widening inequality of American incomes and decline in average hourly wages. The explosion of communications technology and incessant youthful exposure to the sometimes bizarre values implicit in many of the media's messages.
The Carnegie report does not ignore such things, indeed discusses them in some detail. But in a key sentence, the report gets to the gist of the matter. Trouble is likelier to ensue, it says, when young adolescents' lives "lack two crucial prerequisites for their healthy growth and development: a close relationship with a dependable adult and the perception of meaningful opportunities in mainstream society."
Controlling juvenile crime is about policing and prosecuting. But Virginia's lawmakers should keep in mind that it is also about providing young people with responsible adult guidance, and ensuring they have a sense of worth about themselves and their futures.
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