A harsh stance on juvenile crime makes harsh kids

The sign in front of the massive construction project at 1000 Mount Olivet Rd. in Northeast Washington gives no clue about the building's purpose. It's simply called the D.C. Government Youth Services Center, and a rendering on the sign looks as if it could be a combination sports complex and state-of-the-art vocational school.

If only . . .

Located where the troubled old D.C. Receiving Home for Children once stood, this replacement structure could be seen as an upgraded juvenile intake and pretrial detention facility.

But experts say that would require only 30 beds for a city the size of Washington.

The new center has 80 beds — with room for more.

What's really going up, says D.C. Superior Court Judge Eugene Hamilton, is a “state-of-the-art juvenile prison.” What better symbol for the District's ever-toughening stance against juvenile crime?

Today, the D.C. Council is expected to begin hearings on legislation that would make it easier to try juveniles as adults, revoke the driver's licenses of parents of miscreant children and, if the families of the offenders live in public housing, kick them all out.

Under a “Restricting Minors' Access to Graffiti Materials Amendment Act,” fines and imprisonment for juvenile offenders who deface property would be increased and parents held accountable.

“Unfortunately, it appears that the city is trying to substitute harsh treatment of children who are accused of delinquency for the type of rehabilitation and community-based services that we know actually work,” Hamilton said in an interview yesterday.

By attempting to turn juveniles into adults, he added, the city may be trying to avoid providing court-ordered services for juveniles by “eliminating the subject of the court order.”

Hamilton chaired a commission established by Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) to study juvenile justice reform. In 2001, the commission recommended making it more difficult to send children into the adult criminal system — where they were likely to be assaulted and released in worse shape.

Only in cases where the crime was among the most serious offenses should children be tried as adults, the commission said, and judges — not prosecutors — should make the decision.

“Everything about treating children as adult criminals is misguided and cruel,” said Joseph Tulman, a professor of law at the University of the District of Columbia. “But politicians apparently think it sells.”

I asked D.C. Council member Kevin P. Chavous (D-Ward 7) what prompted him to introduce one of the get-tough-on-juveniles bills. “The recent increase in juvenile crime has caused much concern in many neighborhoods” he said. “People are frustrated and they want action.”

No doubt, a recent rash of fatal shootings involving teenagers — on school grounds and on busy streets — has given the District the feel of a wild West town. But the fact is, violent juvenile crime in the city dropped 55 percent during the 1990s, compared with a 15 percent drop in Maryland.

Said Chavous: “As far as the people I represent are concerned, it feels like there is more crime.”

But would the proposed legislation have the desired effect?

“Forty states have made it easier to try juveniles in adult courts, and the results have been an increase in recidivism along with an increase in the intensity of it — you end up with more kids committing worse crimes,” Tulman said.

There is also the question of who actually gets punished.

“Classism is insidious in Washington: ‘Kick em in the streets and take away their driver's licenses if they don't do what we say — unless it's a middle-class kid,’ ” Tulman said. “We have a whole system for dealing with kids of privilege who screw up. But the poor are somehow not deserving of things like effective drug treatment and a good education.”

Oddly, the budgets for such services, as well as art, music and athletic activities, are usually the first to be cut.

But there is always money for a prison — the out-of-sight, out-of-mind solution for government failure to help create communities that nurture children.

“It's like a field of dreams,” Tulman said of the city's new prison. “Build it, and they will come.”

By Courtland Milloy
16 January 2004
 

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