Juvenile Crime

WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials are scrambling to demonstrate that they're addressing sharp jumps in violent crime in some cities, in an attempt to reclaim a traditionally Republican issue amid criticism from some Democrats, mayors and police chiefs. Senior Justice Department officials sought yesterday to highlight the administration's multipronged programs for combating growing gang violence and outbreaks of juvenile crime. The renewed emphasis comes as some experts, as well as politicians, cite federal cuts in city and state law enforcement funding as a possible contributor to spikes in murders, robberies and assaults in medium-sized cities.

State programs for juveniles promote safety, accountabilityDespite criticism of my leadership of the Department of Juvenile Justice from some members of the advocacy community, the department is making significant strides in fulfulling our mission to reduce youth crime and violence ("Juvenile justice chief disappoints early high hopes," Nov. 12).Arrests for violent juvenile crime in Maryland fell 16 percent in 1998, following a 7 percent drop the year before. This is the direct result of the department's new partnerships with law enforcement, schools and communities, and our new emphasis on public safety and offender accountability.

Arrests of juveniles for violent crimes declined last year in Maryland for the second year in a row, a trend that state officials attribute to stronger enforcement and prevention efforts.On the eve of a statewide juvenile justice summit convening today in Hunt Valley, officials announced yesterday that the number of youths arrested for violent crimes declined by 16 percent in 1998, including a 26 percent drop in arrests for robbery.The number of juveniles arrested in Maryland, however, remains higher than in the early 1990s.

They flutter in like bright winter birds, three girls in colorful down coats. They sign in and move to the homework table -- no prodding from adults needed -- and slide comfortably into the controlled chaos of youngsters doing schoolwork, playing pool and shooting hoops.It's a scene repeated every day after school as dozens of children fill the Lansdowne Police Athletic League center, one of seven PAL/Rec centers in Baltimore County serving 4,000 children ages 7 to 17 each year who might otherwise drift onto the street.

They flutter in like bright winter birds, three girls in colorful down coats. They sign in and move to the homework table -- no prodding from adults needed -- and slide comfortably into the controlled chaos of youngsters doing schoolwork, playing pool and shooting hoops.It's a scene repeated every day after school as dozens of children fill the Lansdowne Police Athletic League center, one of seven PAL/Rec centers in Baltimore County serving 4,000 children ages 7 to 17 each year who might otherwise drift onto the street.

ONCE AGAIN the Senate has passed a deeply flawed juvenile crime bill.Last year, the Senate wanted to allow juveniles to be jailed in the same facility with adults, despite the horrors that arose from such a practice.Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, and Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, pleaded for that one and pushed the current racist juvenile crime bill through the Senate. It was passed a week ago, 73-25, with two senators abstaining.The troubling part of this juvenile crime bill is that it eliminates the requirement forcing states to address the disproportionate confinement of black and Hispanic juveniles.

Baltimore's Police Athletic League centers have become more than a safe haven for the city's youth. They have become a crime deterrent as well.A new study by the Baltimore Police Department has concluded that crime involving youngsters drops markedly in neighborhoods where the centers are located, a trend that officers and children said they had known anecdotally for years."

Teen-agers accused of commiting violent crimes in Baltimore could find themselves before a federal judge facing long prison sentences with no chance of parole under a crackdown on juvenile offenders announced yesterday.For the first time in Maryland, U.S. Attorney Lynne A. Battaglia said, her office will consider prosecuting youths as young as 16, bringing the strict sanctions of federal law to some of the city's youngest suspects.Using federal authorities to help combat juvenile crime is an indication, officials said at a news conference, that charging children as adults in state courts isn't enough to deter the most violent youthful offenders.

LONDON -- For nearly two weeks, this was Britain's great parlor game: identify the unnamed high-ranking Cabinet minister whose teen-age son was questioned by police about the alleged sale of $17 worth of marijuana to a tabloid newspaper reporter.Well, yesterday, the name came out in the media, and it was none other than the Labor government's top law-and-order man, Home Secretary Jack Straw.But by the time the name was published there seemed to be more farce than scandal.Newspapers in Scotland and Ireland -- not bound by English courts -- published Straw's name, which had been been circulating on the Internet for days, anyway.

IN the waning days of the gubernatorial race, be prepared to hear a bewildering and contradictory set of claims about the extent and nature of juvenile crime in Maryland and what should be done to prevent and reduce such crime. There is probably no greater political football than teen crime and punishment policy.Politicians seem unable to resist scoring points on this critical and highly emotional topic, yet it is precisely because of the understandably emotional and passionate feelings of the public that politicians of all stripes should treat the issue with care, precision and objectivity.

The cops in Baltimore's Southwestern Police District knocked on 28 doors, searching for 28 juveniles they had locked up in the past month. They were serving not warrants to put them back in jail but invitations to a meeting, to teach, to guide, to inform, to keep them from being locked up a second time. Deputy Maj. Charles V. Carter Sr. led off the meeting, held Friday night at the Kedesh House of Prayer Christian Church on West Lombard Street, with a prayer and a reading of grim statistics of juvenile crime - 260 kids under 18 arrested this year in his district alone, 16 of them deemed violent, 27 of them repeat offenders.

Executives of a venture capital company that has been a mainstay in Baltimore's Mid-Town neighborhood for a quarter-century told the mayor they are moving to the suburbs because their employees no longer feel safe in the city, an economic blow that demonstrates the far-reaching impact crime can have on a neighborhood. The announcement from Louis Citron, the general counsel of New Enterprise Associates on St. Paul Street, which has offices in Chevy Chase, California, China and India, came in the form of an e-mail Thursday night to Mayor Sheila Dixon and three members of the City Council.

Strolling the Inner Harbor and surrounding downtown this time of year is one of the delights of city living. But recent weeks have seen a number of troubling incidents in which roving groups of unsupervised youths have attacked passers-by in those areas, seemingly at random; there's also been an uptick in shootings after a weeks-long lull in violent crime. Last month, for example, unruly teenagers went on a rampage along Pratt Street and the Harborplace pavilions, leaving two youths they encountered suffering from stab wounds that required hospitalization.

In a city where leaders have for years tried and failed to curtail one of the nation's highest crime rates, a University of Maryland law professor has turned his classroom into a crime-fighting think tank. Professor Orde F. Kittrie is challenging his 13 students this semester to come up with workable ideas for making Baltimore and the rest of Maryland a safer place to live. The proposals, due in the form of term papers, are not destined for burial in a dusty file cabinet, the product of mere intellectual exercise.

Rejecting the possibility of a curfew limited to public housing communities in Annapolis, city lawmakers are instead looking into enacting a citywide curfew for youngsters to help reduce violent crime. Joining in a chorus of criticism since Mayor Ellen O. Moyer floated the idea this week, the eight aldermen on the city council all said yesterday that targeting selected neighborhoods could be unconstitutional and would discriminate against people based on their socioeconomic status. "The people who are committing the crimes are not only living in public housing," said Alderwoman Classie Hoyle.

Five candidates, including two incumbents, are vying for three New Windsor Town Council seats up for grabs in the May 8 election. Incumbents Kevin Null and Steve Farkas are seeking re-election, but Councilwoman Charlotte Hollenbeck is stepping down. Town officials said candidates for the council seats were slow to file. The other three candidates include telecommunications technician F. Tracey Alban II, career firefighter Byron Welker and disc jockey and video production company owner Ed Smith.

WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials are scrambling to demonstrate that they're addressing sharp jumps in violent crime in some cities, in an attempt to reclaim a traditionally Republican issue amid criticism from some Democrats, mayors and police chiefs. Senior Justice Department officials sought yesterday to highlight the administration's multipronged programs for combating growing gang violence and outbreaks of juvenile crime. The renewed emphasis comes as some experts, as well as politicians, cite federal cuts in city and state law enforcement funding as a possible contributor to spikes in murders, robberies and assaults in medium-sized cities.

Returning home from work at a fast-food restaurant in Columbia on a cold night in February 2000, Oscar Antonio Lopez-Sanchez was shot in the back and paralyzed. But when a Howard County court considered restitution, the Salvadoran immigrant was not told about an agreement between prosecutors and the lawyers for the 16-year-old shooter until after it was a done deal. When he filed appeals saying that he should have been told in advance so that he could request a court hearing and argue for the maximum $10,000 in restitution, he was turned down by the courts, including the Maryland Court of Appeals last summer.

Mayor Martin O'Malley's administration followed through on a promise yesterday to provide nearly $2 million in new funding to the state's attorney's office to pay for programs that were set to expire at the end of the year. Without discussion, the Board of Estimates approved a $1.96 million supplemental appropriation for State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy. The money was drawn from a surplus in the city's general fund. The two officials, who have had a strained relationship, struck a deal in June to fund the continuation of initiatives related to juvenile crime, domestic violence and gun prosecutions.

Governor fails to cure woes of juvenile justice I couldn't agree more with Michael Olesker's assessment of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s failures on the juvenile justice system ("Ehrlich hopes we forget his promises to kids," Sept. 21). Mr. Ehrlich campaigned on an issue that he apparently cares little about. Since his administration took the helm of our state, Mr. Ehrlich has done nothing to improve the juvenile justice system. The Department of Juvenile Services has been slow to move on egregious problems such as the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School and the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center.