McCollum bill aims to toughen punishment for juvenile criminals

Monday, September 22, 1997 McCollum bill aims to toughen
punishment for juvenile criminals CRIME: Legislation focuses on
averting bad behavior of youth before it becomes problematic

By J. Jioni Palmer

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., first elected to Congress in 1980,
is the chairperson of the House Subcommittee on Crime. All federal
legislation pertaining to crime, federal prison and drugs are
within the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Crime.

Why should the Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997 be passed?

Well, the main reason is that the juvenile justice system,
generally speaking (in the nation), isn’t working. It’s broken and
we need some national leadership in order to provide the kind of
impetus to the states (where most juvenile justice is) to correct
the problems they’ve got, to give the resources they haven’t been
giving to juvenile justice, and to get some attention to the issue.
We have had more juvenile crime – particularly violent – with a
lower population of juveniles than we’ve ever had in our history.
And, we’ve had an indication from all the experts, including the
FBI, that we’re going to see a very likely doubling of the number
of juvenile arrests for violent crimes over the next 10 or so years
as a result of the increased juvenile population, if the trends
continue. So, we need to address the problem now.

To be specific, what I see as the biggest single problem in
juvenile justice is the fact that all too frequently, we’re not
showing kids consequences for misdemeanor crimes; for vandalizing a
store or a home, or spray painting graffiti on a warehouse
building. We’re not sending the message to the youngsters and I
don’t think it’s any wonder that when they get a little older and
they pull the trigger when they get a gun in their hands, thinking
there are no consequences, or less likely to be consequences. So
it’s a big problem that most juvenile authorities recognize, and
the reason why that’s a problem is that the system is overworked.
We don’t have enough probation officers. We don’t have enough
judges. We don’t have enough detention facilities. A lot of that
has to do with the fact that there’s no real organized lobby for
these problems and they are getting worse instead of better.

Critics of your bill charge that it does not deal with the
problems behind juvenile criminal behavior, such as neglect,
dysfunctional families, diminishing economic opportunities, etc.,
and it places the blame squarely on juveniles themselves. How do
you respond to this charge?

Well, our bill does not attempt to deal with the root causes of
juvenile crime. It is attempting to correct the juvenile justice
system that’s broken. That is, once the juvenile has committed an
offense, to deal with the criminal law — the juvenile justice
system and repair it. That’s what it’s all about.

There is a companion bill, an entirely separate piece of
legislation that deals with the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency and Prevention in the Department of Justice. It
provides grant monies, which have been traditional, but actually
increases them for local communities and states to work with those
kinds of traditional prevention programs that I expect the critics
are talking about when they mention these other areas.

Then there is a huge number of federal programs for children who
have problems of delinquency in the early stages, and those
programs are spread over about 13 different agencies of the federal
government; and there are over a hundred of those separate grant
programs today that exist totalling a huge sum of money compared to
this bill — billions and billions of dollars. So, I don’t have a
problem with the issue that’s being raised. There are plenty of
needs to address the problems that occur before you come in contact
with the juvenile justice system. The bill I’ve introduced and this
bill that has gone through the House is designed to address the
system after the youngster comes in contact with the justice system
because he’s committed a crime.

In your opinion, is the predicted rise in juvenile crime related
to the decline in education and economic resources available to
youth?

Well, I think the main predicted rise in juvenile crime is
demographic, not related to education or any other specific source
that exists, and that it’s being changed. In other words, there are
going to be more kids in the age group likely to commit these
violent crimes. And what is more interesting perhaps is to look
back and say why do we now, having the smallest population of
teenagers that we’ve had since 1965, have such a very high juvenile
violent crime rate among that group and then say it’s just. That’s
the real issue here.

Why do you think that is?

Well, I think it’s there partly because of the breakdown of the
family, partly the fact that we do have more education problems at
the younger level. There is tremendous truancy in a lot of our
urban areas, where kids don’t go to school and nobody oversees
their going. We need mentoring programs and we need to get at those
kinds of problems. In essence, the parent is not overseeing that
youngster. But we also need to repair the juvenile justice system
to have more parents held accountable to carry out court-ordered
restrictions on youngsters. Going to school is something that we’re
not seeing in many communities today, the way they should be
seen.

Let me add one last thing. Drugs are a big part of all of this.
That is, we frequently find a drug issue from the standpoint of the
youngster being involved in selling, dealing or using drugs or
often is a parent – sometimes single parent – who is neglecting the
child – not abusing, but is neglecting the child in part because
the parent is on drugs or involved with drugs.

According to a fact sheet produced by your office, "older
teenagers ages 17-19 are the most violent of all age groups." If
this is the case, why not only try these individuals as adults?

Well, with the question of trying as adults … you’re really
talking about the degree of crime you’re trying to deter and
discourage and not have them get to that stage. It’s a growing and
progressive thing. You don’t just suddenly have a youngster that
commits one big violent crime. We’re talking about kids that
develop a pattern of repeat violent offenses; and some of the worst
and most violent of all criminals are 15, 16, 17-year-olds. There
is nothing magic about being 18. So, the objective here is frankly
for trying as adults those who commit murder, rape and assault with
a gun, which is what our legislation encourages. Those who do those
things should be tried as adults.

They need to be taken off the streets just as any other violent
criminal does, and treating them in the traditional juvenile way is
not necessarily the best way to protect the public. It may be kind
of a nice idea if you could do it, but we don’t have the resources
and the danger is too great to continue with the ones that are the
very worst. I want to emphasize that the bill is not designed
primarily at that level because most states do take kids who commit
… who are 15, 16 and 17 years of age, who commit murder or rape
or assault with a gun and try them as adults. So it’s not anything
really new, (the bill).

Right, but the July 21 issue of the New York Times featured a
story on juvenile crime – it reported that almost 60 percent of
those teenagers sent to juvenile court for the first time never
return.

That’s right.

That’s a pretty high number. So what’s the impetus on getting
tough on them right now?

Well, we’re not looking at as getting particularly tough on the
first timers. You’re mixing apples and oranges. What this
legislation is concerned with is fixing the system that is not
adequately dealing with the repeat offenders, and there are plenty
of repeat offenders who first come in as misdemeanor offenders. In
other words, most of your juvenile crime is some vandalism of a
store or home, running over a parking meter, spray painting
graffiti on a building, doing destructive things with property-type
crimes and those progressively shall lead on if youngsters not
diverted from this path lead on to more violent crimes. And it’s
because of that that we’re concerned. It’s not the very first time
so much as it is the person’s second, third and fourth. But you
need to intercept them, and the bill encourages some kind of
punishment, community service or some kind of punishment from the
very first delinquent act. That’s part of the conditionality to
receive federal grant money to repair your system.

Under the Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997, the discretion to
try juveniles as adults will be taken away from the judge and given
to the prosecutor. What is the rationale behind taking this
authority away from an impartial observer in favor of an active
partisan?

Actually what we’re attempting to do here is to encourage again,
through the grant carrot and stick approach that states provide the
prosecutor with. The first line, that is the first option, of
saying I want to try this youngster as an adult because he has
committed one of the types of crimes that we specify – the really
heinous type, and the judge then has the right to say no, you don’t
do that … we’re not going to do it. Right now the system is
skewed the other way. The prosecutor never enters the picture in
many of these cases – the judge has the total say-so over it and
you don’t get the prosecutor’s input, so we’re just shifting
emphasis, attempting to give the prosecutor more clout. But it is
not absolute. The court still has the right to say no.

Well, isn’t part of the reason why that’s been like that is
because the philosophy behind the juvenile court has traditionally
been to rehabilitate youth offenders rather than punish them. You
are proposing a totally different philosophy?

Well, I still agree with that for all of them but for those who
are committing repeat violent felonies. I think you’ve got people
out there who are the worst predators in the country – and I’ve
used that term knowing full well it’s import – you’ve got some of
the worst, most violent criminals who happen to be teenagers – who
happen to be juveniles under the age of 18 and need to be taken off
the streets; they need to be locked away and the key needs to be
thrown away. The prosecutors and the public need to have the power
to do that without judges saying, ‘No, we’re not going to let that
happen.’ Or, at least make the judges think twice about it which is
what this bill suggests needs to be done.

But that’s a very small fraction of youth, but they’re the ones
causing the most problems and pain for society, causing death,
causing injury of enormous proportions, causing violence that you
see on your TV screens every night; and those are not little kids.
Those are people who have become very hardened criminals at a very
early age, and there is nothing magic about the fact they’re 15, 16
or 17 and there is very little hope that they’re going to be
rehabilitated. We shouldn’t be spending our resources trying to
rehabilitate that particular group. Now when you start talking
about younger ones, the whole emphasis of this bill is to intercept
them early and divert them and not ever let them get to that.

At age 13?

Well hopefully at age 13 or, you know at 15 or 16 if they
haven’t gotten the pattern of violent crime. Not all of your
ultimately bad people who wind out in violent criminal behavior are
doing it at 15 or even 16, but they generally are into some pattern
of criminal behavior by that age and maybe younger and so at
whatever age, the idea is to get at them before they get into a
pattern of felony criminal behavior and violent criminal behavior.
That’s the real emphasis of this bill.

One last question: Statistics show that juveniles confined in
adult facilities are seven times more likely to commit suicide and
five times more likely to be sexually assaulted. Do you have any
comments on that?

Well there is nothing in the federal bill, nothing in the bill I
wrote that would encourage, in fact everything would discourage,
the confinement of juveniles in adult facilities. I don’t favor it.
Federal law already existing prohibits it in most cases and so, I
would suggest that that’s an issue which has been blown out of
proportion relative to this legislation, sort of a red herring. The
only way a juvenile is going to be confined in an adult facility is
because state law that already exists provides for that, but the
federal law would discourage it. Viewpoint has asked the sponsor of
the Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997, Representative Bill
McCollum, and juvenile crime expert Dan Macallair to talk about the
merits of the Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997.

Both sides agree that the bill will radically alter the state of
juvenile justice in America. If enacted into law (it already has
passed the House and is awaiting Senate approval) juveniles as
young as 13 will be eligible to stand trial as adults, and much of
the authority currently given judges will be given to prosecutors.
Proponents argue that such steps are necessary to counter the
predicted rise in juvenile crimes, whereas opponents charge that
the measure is a draconian act that doesn’t give children a fair
chance.