THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 19, 1995 TAG: 9512190298
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
More than three-fourths of the juvenile court judges who answered a survey oppose Gov. George Allen's plan to require adult court trials for juveniles charged with violent crimes.
Of 52 juvenile court judges who responded to the survey by The Roanoke Times, 78 percent disagreed with the idea of making adult trials automatic for violent offenders 14 or older. Slightly more than half the state's juvenile court judges responded to the survey.
``Nine times out of 10 any juvenile charged with murder, rape or robbery would be transferred or dealt with seriously under the available sanctions,'' one judge wrote in the anonymous mail survey.
``Sadly, many of the people who are now throwing stones have not meaningfully participated in our system,'' another judge wrote.
The judge said it was ironic that Youth and Family Services Director Patricia West has criticized the courts for being too lenient on juveniles, when it is her department that usually decides when to release them.
West declined the newspaper's request for an interview. She did not return a telephone call from The Associated Press on Monday.
Allen and his Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform want the General Assembly to make adult trials mandatory for defendants age 14 to 17 who are charged with violent offenses. Current law lets juvenile court judges decide whether juveniles should be tried as adults.
The Allen commission also wants to make adult trials automatic for juvenile offenders 14 and older who have been convicted of three felonies.
In the newspaper's survey, judges said that proposal could unnecessarily trap minor offenders such as shoplifters and check forgers in adult courts.
The Republican governor's proposals also have come under fire from a Commission on Youth task force that is recommending less sweeping changes in the juvenile justice system.
The task force headed by Del. Jerrauld Jones, D-Norfolk, wants to increase the age from 21 to 25 at which juvenile offenders can be incarcerated.
Under the Allen plan, juveniles convicted as adults would be held in a special prison for underage offenders until they turned 18, at which point they would be integrated into the regular prison population.
``The violent and chronic offenders should be housed in separate facilities designed to deal with them, rather than mixing all juveniles in the same facility,'' said Attorney General James S. Gilmore III, who heads Allen's commission. ``Today's shoplifters and egg-throwers cannot learn to change their ways when they're bunking with a murderer.''
Under the Gilmore commission's plan, about 2,500 serious offenders would be removed from the juvenile correctional centers within five years and placed in the special prison, to be built at a cost of about $64 million.
Jones said more time is needed to gauge the results of juvenile justice laws that took effect in 1994.
They lowered from 15 to 14 the age at which a juvenile can be tried as an adult and gave juvenile court judges the power to set specific sentences of up to seven years for serious offenders.
Before then, all juveniles were sent to correctional centers operated by the Department of Youth and Family Services for indefinite times, with the staff deciding when they were suitable for release.
Five 14-year-olds had been sent to Circuit Court as adults by April, and 110 youths had received set sentences.
Of the 412 juveniles sent to Circuit Court statewide in 1992, 25 percent received no incarceration, according to a Commission on Youth study.
``The myth is that if you send them to adult court they will get walloped,'' Jones said. ``That just does not happen.''
KEYWORDS: SURVEY JUVENILES by CNB