Young Offenders

A broad coalition of Nobel Peace Prize winners and former U.S. diplomats, allied countries and some of the nation's most influential medical and religious groups pushed the Supreme Court yesterday to abolish the death penalty for teenage killers, pointing to international law and new research on brain development. The court is scheduled to reconsider this fall the question of whether executing killers who committed their crimes at age 16 or 17 is a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

THE ESTIMABLE ACTOR, director and ex-con Charles S. "Roc" Dutton offers a grim -- yet not inevitable -- view of the future. In a recent interview with The Sun, Mr. Dutton, who directed the powerful HBO mini-series "The Corner," said: "The prison is being planned for the 17-year-old black kid who's not even born yet. There's a cell being planned for him. That's an industry now." Probably true. Maryland, for example, is completing a maximum security wing in Cumberland. It's a 512-bed fortress to house many of the state's most violent offenders -- a frightening number of whom are currently in inadequate dormitories at the state's 7,000-bed Jessup complex.

WASHINGTON -- A string of little-noticed elements in the doomed 1991 crime bill might have had a greater impact on local crime than the highly publicized measures that provoked last week's congressional deadlock.The demise of the bill forestalled, for the time being, the introduction of a new national law-and-order agenda based in part on converting successful local anti-crime initiatives into federally financed programs.But Republicans found the legislation unacceptable overall because they considered it too soft on defendants.

Providing alternatives to help offenders find a better way of life We commend The Sun's editorial endorsing Operation Safe Neighborhoods ("Neighborhood can keep hope alive," May 30). The Open Society Institute-Baltimore is pleased to be a funder for this program, which enables communities to hold offenders accountable and simultan- eously offer them a chance at a better way of life. Operation Safe Neighborhood has already achieved its initial goal, to encourage collaboration and cooperation between law enforcement agencies to improve their crime fighting.

Of the nine out-of-state programs Maryland plans to use for its toughest juvenile offenders when it closes the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School, only two are locked, highly secure facilities aimed at such youths - and one of them is already full for the next year, a review by The Sun has found. The Department of Juvenile Services has said the programs in other states would temporarily provide a secure setting for hardened, sometimes violent juvenile offenders until Maryland can develop such centers here.

At 17, Lamont Davis has been arrested 15 times since age 10, including charges of drug dealing, carjacking with a handgun and assaults. Yet he's spent just a handful of weeks in juvenile treatment facilities over the years and was sent home in July after admitting to charges in a robbery. Days later, the Baltimore teen was arrested on charges that he critically wounded a 5-year-old girl as he shot at another youth. That Davis now faces more serious criminal charges than ever, city prosecutors and some public officials say, highlights a dangerous problem in the juvenile justice system: Because it emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment, teens who are lightly sanctioned for early offenses sometimes graduate to more violent crimes.

The description reads like a riot scene from a prison movie: inmates on a rampage, attacking each other with chairs and mop handles. A guard fuels the chaos by opening a locked door to let one side attack the other. Another guard kicks through two doors in pursuit of an inmate, who repels him with a fire extinguisher. Substitute the word students for inmates and you've got reality, as depicted in a report on Incident 11473 at the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School for juveniles, in Baltimore County.

MY YOUNGEST was about to turn only a year old, but I had no choice. I needed to return to work. I sent out resumes. Financially, things became desperate, so I decided I would take any job that would give me benefits. Then the call came. "We would like you to come in for an interview at School 370 - Baltimore Detention Center." "Do you mean the jail?" I asked in disbelief. "Yes." Since I live in Baltimore City, I had voted "tough on crime" so that I didn't have to fear the population in prison.

Slots standoff must not stop tuition cap bill There has been a lot of talk this year in Annapolis about addressing Maryland's skyrocketing tuition rates and cuts in state university funding. Finally, last week that talk began turning into action ("House OKs bill to ease rises in college tuition," March 30). But now the legislation is being held hostage by a state Senate committee to pressure the House to pass a slots bill. Students and universities have suffered deep cuts in financial aid in recent years.

BILLS THAT would reorganize the state's Department of Juvenile Services spell out a clear, coherent plan for kids who trip and fall into the system. They also spell out a commitment by legislators to back up the department. That's good, because both the plan and the commitment need to be spelled out. While the administration, DJS officials and legislators on both sides of the aisle at last agree to agree on such goals as accountability, regionalization, after-care and smaller facilities, what's really needed is agreement that these worthy goals will make it off the page and into reality.