Increase in Youth Crime Brings Push for Tougher Laws : Bills: State legislators seek to lower the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults. Critics say candidates for rehabilitation would be lost to long prison terms.

An 8-year-old boy had been murdered inside his home with a meat cleaver and police were searching for evidence. Officers guarding the crime scene were approached by a teen-age boy, who told them he had seen two men running from the apartment. They were carrying a plastic bag, the boy said, filled with loot.

But police knew the boy was lying. The tops of his sneakers were covered with blood.

The boy, it turned out, had murdered the 8-year-old, burglarized the San Jose house and had made a clumsy attempt to lead police astray.

Because he was one month shy of his 16th birthday, the boy was tried in Juvenile Court in March and sentenced to the California Youth Authority, where state law requires he be released at 25. Had he been 16, he could have been tried in adult court and received a much longer prison sentence, including life without possibility of parole.

The tale of the 15-year-old murderer is being used by legislators as a lurid symbol in their statewide campaign to toughen the justice system’s handling of juvenile offenders. The case has prompted the introduction of a bill by Assemblyman Charles W. Quackenbush (R-San Jose) that would make juvenile killers as young as 14 eligible for adult court. At least 13 other bills under consideration in the Assembly would either lower the eligibility age or establish other punitive measures for the handling of juveniles.

On the federal level, the recently passed Senate crime bill contains a provision to allow adult trials for suspects as young as 13, and another to make gang membership a federal offense.

Underlying this campaign are statistics showing youth crime on the rise nationwide, prompting many states to re-evaluate their juvenile justice systems. Dozens of states try youths as young as 14 as adults and are sending an increasing number of 16- and 17-year-olds to adult court.

In Los Angeles County, about 550 juveniles were sent to adult court for trial last year--almost triple the number of five years ago. In Orange County, about 175 juveniles were sent to adult court last year, roughly 10 times more than five years ago.

“Twenty-five years ago we had two kids in juvenile hall for murder and it was so unusual people from all over the hall came to see if these kids had three heads or were monsters,” said Robert Bellusci, a deputy probation officer. “Now we’re getting murders almost every day. And there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t get a case that’s so brutal it curdles my blood.”

At a hearing last week before the Assembly’s Committee on Public Safety, Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said he is in favor of adult trials for suspects as young as 14 “but would like to have the option of going lower than 14” in certain cases. Prosecutors at the hearing contended that they are merely trying to protect the public by seeking longer sentences for a youthful population that is becoming increasingly dangerous.

But critics of the bills argued that this approach is an oversimplified reaction to a complex problem. They pointed out that a record number of 16- and 17-year-olds are being targeted for prosecution in an adult system that they say is not designed for youthful offenders.

Many public defenders and members of child advocacy groups charge that prosecutors are exploiting the high-profile crimes to whip the public into a frenzy and move more children--even those with good prospects for rehabilitation--into adult court.

“We’re ignoring all the abuse and neglect and other factors that create all these juvenile criminals,” said Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. “Instead, we’re letting ambitious politicians defraud the public into thinking that trying more juveniles as adults is really going to make any meaningful change.

“It’s hard for me to understand how the problems will be solved by taking some underage kids and throwing them in an adult system that is explosive and violent and on the verge of collapse.”

This debate over juvenile sentencing often comes down to one question: Who is a child?

Law enforcement officials contend that juveniles who murder should no longer be given the kinds of breaks society traditionally has extended to children. State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren is backing the bill introduced in the wake of the San Jose killing. He sums up his views with a prosecutors’ adage: “If you do a man’s crime, you should do a man’s time.”

Dennis Brown, whose son was killed by a 14-year-old gang member, was one of half a dozen parents at the Sacramento hearing who told how they lost children to juvenile killers. Brown, who spoke is support of the Quackenbush bill, said knowing that the youth who killed his son will be serving a relatively short sentence has caused the family even more anguish.

Brown’s son, Chris, was eating a hot dog at an Encino convenience store last year when the 14-year-old and two others fled with several 12-packs of beer. The manager called out for help and when Chris Brown, 24, cornered the 14-year-old in the back yard of a nearby house, the youth shot him in the chest with a handgun.

The 14-year-old, who was sentenced to the youth authority, will be eligible for parole in six years. If he had been tried as an adult, he would have faced a sentence of 25 years to life in prison or life without possibility of parole.

“This kid’s going to get out before long, but me and my family have a lifetime sentence.. . . We have to live with Chris’ murder every day for the rest of our lives,” Brown said. “All the emphasis is on the juvenile and his rehabilitation, but nobody cares about the murder victims or their family . . . or the safety of the public.”

But many juvenile justice experts reject the contention that trying youths as adults helps control the crime problem. A federal study in New York during the 1980s examined laws that lowered the age of juveniles who can be tried as adults and found that “the laws had absolutely no impact” on the juvenile crime rate, said Dan Macallair, a director at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.

California jails its juveniles at a higher rate than any other state and keeps them locked up longer, according to federal statistics, but the youth crime rate has continued to rise. California has a higher per capita incarceration rate for juveniles than any other state.

“All these laws are doing is making the world safer for politicians, not citizens.” Krisberg said at the committee hearing. “We already have the toughest juvenile justice system in the U.S. . . . but it’s not having an impact on juvenile crime. We need a careful, thoughtful approach to these problems.”

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Most of the attorneys at the Los Angeles public defender’s juvenile office, housed in a crowded series of rooms adjacent to the central Juvenile Hall, recall cases involving youths with good prospects for rehabilitation--youths who face trial in adult court.

Lisa Greer represented a 16-year-old boy who was living with relatives after his parents paid a smuggler to get him out of Vietnam. The boy, who left Vietnam with boat people and lived in a refugee camp in Thailand, was a good student, receiving As in his high school math and science courses. But his aunt and uncle decided they could no longer afford to house him and sent him off to live with a brother, who worked full time while attending school at night.

The boy was constantly left alone and began associating with gang members. He was accused of driving a stolen car and shooting at--and missing--another group of teen-agers after an argument.

A social worker who evaluated the youth determined that he should not be sentenced as an adult nor sent to the California Youth Authority because he was “not hard core enough,” Greer said. The social worker considered him an ideal candidate for a juvenile probation camp or foster care, she said.

“This kid was wrenched from his friends and family and went through hell to get here,” Greer said. “He was doing fine until his support structure here was taken away. All of a sudden he found himself living virtually alone and he got involved with the wrong people. I really felt that he was a kid who would straighten out with the right program.”

The probation officer who interviewed the youth and studied the case told Greer he agreed that the youth should stay in the juvenile system. But a probation supervisor overruled the officer, Greer said, and recommended that he be tried in adult court, where he faces a stiff sentence.

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The primary reason for the increase in juvenile crime is gang-related violence and the prevalence of guns, criminal justice experts say. But there also are a number of societal factors, they say, including child abuse, more single-parent households, television and movies that glorify violence and increased drug use.

In Los Angeles County, about 20,000 juveniles were charged with felonies last year, compared to about 15,000 five years ago. The county’s juvenile homicide rate has more than doubled in the past decade, with about 300 juveniles a year now being charged with murder.

At one time in California, all youths under 21 were considered juveniles by the court. In the 1960s, the age was dropped to 18. Today, 16- and 17-year-olds are eligible to be tried as adults for a number of serious crimes, including murder, armed robbery, rape and assault with a firearm.

Before a youth can be tried as an adult, the district attorney’s office must request a “fitness investigation.” A probation officer investigates the seriousness of the crime, the juvenile’s criminal history, the prospects for rehabilitation and other factors and makes a recommendation to the court.

Youths who are tried in Juvenile Court for serious crimes usually are sentenced either to probation camps or the California Youth Authority, where there is more of an emphasis on rehabilitation--including counseling, education and job training--than at state prisons.

If tried as adults, the youths can be sent to state prison or the youth authority, where they are transferred to state prison at age 25, if their sentences are long enough.

By charging a juvenile in adult court with first-degree murder, “society is basically giving up on the kid,” said Mark Lessem, head deputy in the public defender’s juvenile division.

“It’s ludicrous to say all these 16-year-olds are beyond rehabilitation so throw them in prison for 30 years,” he said. “After a sentence like 30 years--forget it. You’ve lost any chance for rehabilitation. And don’t forget society when he gets out . . . he’s going to be a lot more dangerous.”

But Quackenbush contends that society would have been better served if the 15-year-old San Jose boy had been prosecuted as an adult.

He had planned to break into a neighbor’s townhouse, rape and murder the woman who lived there and steal her valuables, authorities said. The boy, who brought along two accomplices, 16 and 18, discovered that the woman was not home. But he and his friends decided to rob the house anyway.

They talked the woman’s 8-year-old son, Melvin Ancheta, who was home from school with a cold, into letting them inside. They ransacked the house and found some jewelry, a video game and other items. The 15-year-old then stabbed Melvin, who was watching cartoons, with a knife and finished him off with a meat cleaver.

“You should have seen me,” the 15-year-old told one of his accomplices, who was in another room, according to court records. “I had second thoughts about doing it. But then it just got flowing in my adrenaline.”

After Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Diane Northway sentenced the 15-year-old to the youth authority, she expressed frustration that she could not impose a harsher sentence.

“As sure as he sits in the courtroom today--these are not the acts of a child, but the acts of a cruel and vicious murderer,” the judge told the court in March. “There is no justice because Melvin’s murderer cannot be tried as an adult. . . . The maximum that the law allows is that Melvin Ancheta’s murderer be locked up for nine years. We all know, we all believe, that in this case, that is not enough.”