Crackdown on Youth Crime: Without Balance, It’s a Loser

Juvenile crime has increased by more than 60% since 1984, while the overall U.S. crime rate has fallen in recent years. By the year 2010, the incidence of juvenile crime is expected to double amid a teenage population surge. No improvement is in sight. Lawmakers are rightly alarmed but should recognize that harsher punishment is not the only--or even the most effective--means of stemming the tide.

Congress, seeking to toughen a system perceived as coddling juvenile criminals, is debating similar House and Senate bills that would distribute up to $3.6 billion over five years to states that are making “reasonable efforts” to prosecute juveniles over 13 as adults for violent felonies; that impose graduated sanctions for juvenile repeat offenders, and that conduct drug tests on juveniles arrested on felony charges.

Elements of both bills could usefully encourage state officials to intervene early in teenagers’ lives, before petty crimes can escalate into felonies. Unfortunately, since Atty. Gen. Janet Reno criticized the bills last week for ignoring prevention measures in their zeal to prosecute, many legislators have been falsely couching the debate as one between liberals soft on crime and conservatives hungry to crack down hard.

The debate in Congress should not be over which interventions are hard or soft but which are effective or ineffective. And enough evidence is in to show that the bills as presently written, emphasizing prosecution and all but ignoring prevention, would not do enough to slow juvenile crime rates.

For instance, while the bills encourage steep fines for youngsters who violate curfew (such as the $2,500 now levied in two Ventura County cities, Thousand Oaks and Fillmore), research shows that curfew fines often escalate the family problems that are driving teenagers out of their houses in the first place. In fact, a leading cause of errant juvenile behavior like curfew violations and truancy is child abuse. A study issued last month by the Child Welfare League of America found that abused children are 67 times more likely than non-abused ones to run afoul of the law. Neither of the congressional bills, however, earmarks funds to provide social workers with the tools they need to fight abuse discovered when a child breaks the law.

Similarly, while the bills assume that imprisoning more youths as adults will somehow stymie crime, the research argues otherwise.

The obvious but overlooked solution is for Congress to require states to tie preventive programs to punitive measures. This country clearly needs more early intervention programs in public schools to identify children who are tardy or ditching classes and put them back on course.

The House can affirm the importance of preventive measures by voting next week for a bill authored by Rep. Frank Riggs (R-Windsor), a former police officer. His measure, HR 1818, would funnel money to state and local agencies for a range of prevention programs like mentoring, drug and alcohol treatment and job training. The bill’s preventive focus provides needed balance to the House’s punitive bill, HR 3, by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.).

It would be easy if the solution were as simple as locking them up earlier and longer. But it isn’t, as liberal and conservative criminologists, along with public officials like Reno and Riggs, have pointed out. McCollum and other legislators would do more for public safety by listening to the voices of experience.