Young Offenders

Running errands for patients at Bryn Mawr Hospital is not how most teenagers would choose to spend their free time. But for more than 25 youngsters arrested in Lower Merion Township in the last year for underage drinking, criminal mischief or shoplifting, it sure beats the alternative: a fine of up to $300 and a permanent court record. Those are the choices available to many teenagers who appear before District Justice Henry Schireson in his courtroom on Montgomery Avenue in Narberth.

Cute move. While the White House scandal riveted the nation last week, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives tacked a major misguided rewrite of federal juvenile justice policy onto a little Mom-and-apple-pie funding bill. The measure would greatly reduce judges' discretion in juvenile cases and open juvenile records to scrutiny by school officials and even college admissions officers. It would put more - and younger - children into the adult court system.

In an effort to ease overcrowding in juvenile detention centers and reduce recidivism, the state yesterday announced a pilot project that would staff the Camden County public defender's office with social workers. The announcement came at a juvenile-justice symposium sponsored by the Rutgers University School of Social Work and the state Office of the Public Defender. With the help of a $200,000 grant from the state Juvenile Justice Commission, three full-time social workers and four to six Rutgers University-Camden social-work graduate students will work with the public defender's office to steer young offenders into prevention programs rather than detention centers.

When Donald Tangora talks about getting restitution from juvenile offenders, he uses terms such as extortion and hit list. Tangora, a probation supervisor with the Bucks County Juvenile Court, talks sincerely about the role the court plays in trying to reconstruct young lives that have fallen afoul of the law. But he assumes a different attitude when talking about restitution and the efforts he and his colleagues are making to return to...

The Bucks County Juvenile Probation Department says it needs about $500,000 more than its original, $3 million 1992 budget allotment to service young offenders through the end of the year. The $500,000 represents a 16.6 percent increase over the budget laid out for the department by the county commissioners early this year. William Ford, department director, says juvenile probation needs more money for one simple reason: "There are too many kids being arrested. " During budget season in late 1991, the department had expected to work with between 1,500 and 1,600 youths in 1992, Ford said.

Juvenile offenders in Chester County are about to abandon their evil ways and embark on the road to responsibility, in some cases picking up litter along the way. That's the idea, anyway. On Dec. 1, the county Juvenile Probation Department unveiled its community-service program, giving young lawbreakers a different method to pay their debt to society. More than 60 community-service organizations across the county, including churches, libraries, fire and police departments, and Habitat for Humanity, have agreed to sponsor the youths.

Even in the face of the recent scandal involving the Luzerne County juvenile court, Pennsylvania can be proud of its leadership in protecting children in the justice system. Since 1995, the state has emphasized balanced, restorative justice as a core principle in the disposition of juvenile offenders. Pennsylvania is among a minority of states that allow every juvenile transferred to adult court the opportunity to have the case returned to juvenile court for trial. Because of its progressive record, it was the first state the MacArthur Foundation chose to participate in its juvenile justice reform initiative.

THE SCIENCE is now undisputed: Adolescents' brains make them more impetuous, more susceptible to peer pressure, and less able to make good decisions. This lessens their culpability for the crimes they commit. But adolescents' brains also make it easier for them to change, and to be rehabilitated. The question before the U.S. Supreme Court - and the country as a whole - is whether to follow the science or cling to "throw away the key" policies that have filled our prisons with many young people who could, if given the chance, be rehabilitated and go on to lead productive lives.

Maurice, a burly 19-year-old, had never acted until last year. In fact, he had no contact with theater at all. Now, he's written and starred in a one-act play about growing up in a broken family. It was performed in a claustrophobic room with metal mesh covering the windows at the Bensalem Youth Development Center (BYDC), where Maurice is serving time for "shooting someone," as he put it. It was here that he got involved in an experimental theater arts program, which he credits with helping him talk and think about his past, something the center's therapists had failed to do. The BYDC is a state-operated facility for Pennsylvania's most violent juvenile delinquents.

As Karen Crilly put it, the 8-year-old boy who stood in front of Bristol Borough's Youth Aid Panel looked barely old enough to know his name. But there he was on Sept. 24, the night of the panel's first hearing, accused along with a handful of other youngsters of stealing bicycles. Over time, the youngsters had stolen 12 bikes and stripped, rebuilt and sold them. It was, in essence, a juvenile chop shop. The 8-year-old admitted to helping steal just one bicycle. Although the boy appeared naive, said panel member Crilly, who also is an assistant vice president with Fidelity Savings in the borough, he was street- wise.

Youth programs We commend The Inquirer for its editorial "Juvenile offenders don't deserve no-parole sentences" (April 21). Research has shown that most young people who engage in crime will grow out of it, and that more serious punishment does not do a great job of deterring other would-be criminals. More effective are alternative programs that address factors that lead to involvement in crime and prevent recidivism. The Youth Violence Reduction Partnership (YVRP)

The case before the Supreme Court challenging life-without-parole sentences for teens is really about hope. Does the Constitution somehow bar the courts from depriving all hope of release from prison for young offenders who, in fact, are not fully responsible for their actions, no matter how heinous? Judging from recent arguments, the court could be leaning toward yet another landmark decision that would bolster the core tenet of the juvenile-justice system — namely, that youthful offenders deserve a second chance.

In the world of crime, Guillermo Soto was hardly a standout: 21 and busted for the first time selling drugs in North Philadelphia. But Soto did fit the model for what criminologists call "at-risk": undereducated, unemployed, and, barring intervention, a nonviolent drug offender about to start studying for a "Ph.D. in violence" while serving a mandatory one-year term in a Pennsylvania prison. Instead, Soto and seven cohorts stood before news cameras Wednesday, introduced by District Attorney Seth Williams as the first class of "the Choice is Yours," a $1.3 million pilot program backed by grants from the Lenfest and William Penn Foundations.

While teachers and education administrators recoil in shock over Gov. Corbett's proposal to slash funding, a $1.65 billion cut representing more than a third of all reductions, life at the Department of Corrections is sort of swell. Community and economic development? Whacked. Higher education? Halved. Correctional institutions? Up 11 percent, to almost $1.9 billion. "We need to think smarter about how and when and how long to jail people," Corbett said in his budget address Tuesday.

Even in the face of the recent scandal involving the Luzerne County juvenile court, Pennsylvania can be proud of its leadership in protecting children in the justice system. Since 1995, the state has emphasized balanced, restorative justice as a core principle in the disposition of juvenile offenders. Pennsylvania is among a minority of states that allow every juvenile transferred to adult court the opportunity to have the case returned to juvenile court for trial. Because of its progressive record, it was the first state the MacArthur Foundation chose to participate in its juvenile justice reform initiative.

THE SCIENCE is now undisputed: Adolescents' brains make them more impetuous, more susceptible to peer pressure, and less able to make good decisions. This lessens their culpability for the crimes they commit. But adolescents' brains also make it easier for them to change, and to be rehabilitated. The question before the U.S. Supreme Court - and the country as a whole - is whether to follow the science or cling to "throw away the key" policies that have filled our prisons with many young people who could, if given the chance, be rehabilitated and go on to lead productive lives.

A report issued this week by Human Rights Watch, No Equal Justice, shows how a little-known federal law has created problems for prisons and their administrators. As corrections professionals, we applaud the report. Passed more than 13 years ago, the Prison Litigation Reform Act was intended to curb frivolous prisoner lawsuits. It has achieved some of its goals, reducing the per capita rate of prisoner lawsuits by nearly 60 percent, according to Washington University law professor Margo Schlanger.

IF YOU WERE to judge by our incarceration rates, you'd think Pennsylvania has the most dangerous young offenders on earth. There is nowhere else on earth but Pennsylvania where offenders as young as 10 are likely to be warehoused for the rest of their lives. We are a state that certifies juveniles as young as 10 years old for adult trial on homicide and major felonies. Pennsylvania also is one of the few states in the United States where there is no parole from a life sentence.

THE PHOTOS can rip your heart out: pictures of children, the soft features of babyhood still lingering in their faces, dressed in prison jumpsuits, living the rest of their lives behind bars. The images were taken not in some backward country, but here the United States. A sobering report released last week by the Equal Justice Initiative shows that more than 2,225 children age 17 and younger in the United States have been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Of that number, 73 were 13 and 14 when sentenced.

THEY RAN the back alleys and asphalt byways of the cities. They roamed darkened forests and rolling countrysides, too. Giddy with the curiosity of youth, they explored life's simple mysteries in the most natural and joyous ways. Then, these budding boys and girls encountered the defining moments of their young lives: They acted on impulse without thought, and experienced life-altering tragedies. Years later, having advanced to adulthood, they prowl the dank blocks of state prisons.