Reno Urges Grads to Help Youths : Commencement: U.S. attorney general asks 294 law school graduates at UCLA to consider careers that would boost opportunities for children and improve juvenile justice system.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno urged UCLA School of Law graduates Sunday to work for the betterment of America’s children and juvenile justice system, not to become the kinds of lawyers who thrive just on nasty divorce and harmful custody squabbles.

“We prefer to invest in buildings and roads and superstructure and technology, and we have forgotten how to invest in our children,” Reno told the audience of about 3,000 who gathered for the law school’s commencement at Dickson Plaza on the Westwood campus.

Reno, former state attorney of Dade County, Fla., recalled cases in which young criminals might have taken a more productive path in life if they had been given better health care, education and a safer home environment early on.

“I recognized that unless we started early, unless we intervened early, unless we gave that child a childhood that could build a firm foundation, we could never build enough juvenile justice institutions or enough prisons to deal with that child,” she said.

Reno cited powerful and sad statistics on youth violence. One in five personal crimes of violence nationwide is committed by a juvenile, she said. From 1984 to 1993, arrests doubled for juveniles charged with murder and non-negligent manslaughter. In 1992, more than 2,600 young people under the age of 18 were murdered.

“The people in this country most unrepresented, most voiceless in too many institutions in this country are our most precious possession, our children. And one of the great issues we face in this nation, and that you will face as you practice law is . . . how can we ensure them a peaceful society without the violence in which children are killing children?”

She offered few specific answers in the speech and no concrete ideas about how to pay for better programs during a time of budget cuts. But Reno suggested that it would be financially and morally unwise simply to incarcerate youngsters without other help.

While juvenile offenders should be punished “fairly, certainly and firmly,” she added that “it doesn’t make any sense to send them back to the community without job training, without addressing the drug problem, without providing after-care and support.”

UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young presented Reno with the UCLA Medal, the highest honor the university bestows. Her subsequent speech, delivered in her trademark folksy style, was greeted with warm and polite applause. But it included no references to recent events such as the deadly bombing in Oklahoma City.

Instead, Reno urged the 294 law school graduates to think about careers that would lessen domestic violence and provide better access to health care. Too many divorce attorneys, she said, think only of their clients and not the children.

Never married and never a mother herself, Reno recalled how she became the guardian to 15-year-old twins, children of a friend who died a decade ago. She described her guardianship as the most rewarding experience of her life.

Citing the influence of teachers in her life, she drew the biggest applause in her 25-minute speech when she said: “Something is wrong with a nation that pays its football players in the six-digit figures and pays what we pay our teachers.”