1. Richmond Times-Dispatch
IN SEARCH OF A HEALING SOLUTION TO VIOLENT YOUTH CRIME
By Robert Bobb
RobertBobb is Richmond's City Manager.
Published: March 9, 1994
The explosion of violent crime among American youth has terrorized this
country, sounding alarms in national and local media and throughout our
neighborhoods. We are worried for ourselves, for our children, and for generations
beyond. If this violence is left unchecked, we will continue to degenerate into a
society in which reckless youth violence is an everyday perverted form of
entertainment or sport, much like the chilling scenario depicted in Anthony
Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.
I am pleased to report that our City Council is on the cutting edge of
confronting youth violence with an innovative model it approved this year. Our
City Council recognizes that the knee-jerk response to "lock 'em up and throw
away the key" simply doesn'twork, as evidenced by the fact that 75 percent of U.S.
juveniles sentenced to adult prisons and jails are locked up again within 18 months.
Furthermore, 60 percent of all juveniles who commit one offense never commit
another. For them, a warning, restitution, or probation is sufficient. In contrast,
however, the second-time offender has a very high probability of reoffending. Our
no-nonsense, comprehensive approach focuses on this remaining 40 percent, some
of whom posea serious threat to public safety. This focus is founded on the fact
that the only meaningful answers for the majority of these youth lie in long-term
prevention and rehabilitation.
The 1994 General Assembly can help us move in that direction. Now before the
General Assembly for funding, Richmond's proposed community-based
Continuum of Services provides an excellent opportunity for the Allen
administration and the General Assembly to supportan innovative approachto this
growing problem -- an approachthat could serve as a model for the
Commonwealth.
2. This is a hard-nosed, comprehensive program based on the belief that these young
people who have taken so much from our society must now give back. This
payback will come in the short term through extensive community service and
restitution and in the long term through a grueling educational, vocational, and
personal development program. Each participating youth will be told in no
uncertain terms what is expected of him, and he will be held accountable for his
performance, which will be closely monitored through each of the following stages
of the program:
* Expanded services at the pre-sentencing stage, including physical detention,
outreach detention with electronic monitoring, or house arrest for youths who are
less of a threat to society;
* A strengthened, customized probation service, coupled with a more intensive
home supervision program with 24-hour accountability and reporting requirements
for youth and their families;
* An intensive day treatment program providing an intensive array of vocational,
education, and life-skills services, along with counseling and other supports;
* A residential bootcamp based on a highly structured system of goal- setting and
proven training methods. The purposeis to help youths adjust their attitudes about
themselves and their lives, while developing important social and workplace skills.
The daily regimen would include six hours of intensive educational and vocational
training and 2-3 hours of skill development for three months. This would be
followed by nine months of aftercare. As in all phases of this program, the
performance of all bootcamp participants will be closely monitored for measurable
results.
To achieve meaningful, long-term results, this program must be tough on the city's
delinquent youths, and it must emphasize rigorous, outcome-based education and
skills development. Not only does this approachmake philosophical sense; it also
makes economic sense. In fact, it costs nearly $100 a day to commit a youth to a
state learning center, as opposedto $30 a day to remand a youth to an intensive
community supervision program or $40 a day for a non-residential day treatment
program.
With supportfrom the Governor and General Assembly, this model will help us
deal more effectively with juvenile crime and violence in a way that will yield
permanent, healing results.
