Young Offenders

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.

RECENTLY, students in my juvenile justice class and I discussed a case in which a 12-year-old and some friends brought plastic bags and a medicine vial to school containing milk chips that resembled crack cocaine. Timothy distributed the milk chips to his friends throughout the school day. He did not try to disguise the fact that these were chips. He did not seek money for their distribution. None of his schoolmates thought he had or was trying to distribute crack. Nevertheless, Timothy was found delinquent on the basis of distributing a controlled, dangerous substance.

The ninth-grader, dressed in a black pantsuit, dabbed at her eyes, and her parents fidgeted beside her. Her lawyer spoke about her good grades. The prosecutor read aloud a statement describing her sale of pills to a schoolmate. "You've shattered the trust your parents have had in you," said Peter M. Tabatsko, Carroll County's juvenile master, who was about to sentence the first offender to appear in the state's first session of juvenile night court. "I trust this was an aberration." The girl was one of a dozen young suspected offenders to go to the courthouse in Westminster Thursday night.

A state task force appointed to help fix Maryland's system of supervising juvenile delinquents after they leave institutions started work yesterday with a discussion that veered from academia to the streets. Gov. Parris N. Glendening appointed the 11-member task force after a series in The Sun last month detailed abuses at one of the state's boot camps for delinquents in Western Maryland, and the failure of the state Department of Juvenile Justice to keep track of young offenders once they had graduated from the camp.

Young first-time drug and alcohol offenders in Carroll County might soon get a dose of reality -- a shocking one -- if referred by juvenile authorities to a new education program already deemed a success in Tennessee and on the Eastern Shore.Called Reality, the program should be in operation in Carroll by August or September, said Tfc. Terry Ober, coordinator for the Maryland State Police, who works from the Centerville barracks in Queen Anne's County.Reality, which was founded in Tennessee 16 years ago, came to Maryland about 18 months ago, after Ober learned of its success from two Tennessee sheriff's deputies.

Maybe 40 teen-agers roam the corridors, girls gabbing about whatever, boys leaning against the wall, eyes darting for friends.It could be, you know, the mall. But it's the second floor of Maryland District Court in Glen Burnie on the last Wednesday night of the month.This is the face of justice, and it doesn't shave yet. In Anne Arundel County Teen Court, these teen-agers, fashionably attired in hair scrunchies on the wrists and jeans baggy enough to hide a Volkswagen bug, are deciding how to punish other teen-agers who admit to minor crimes.

Concerned about three recent drug overdose deaths, including that of a 15-year-old Westminster High School student, a group of Carroll County residents has begun clamoring for stiffer penalties against juvenile drug offenders.The concern has spurred community meetings with state and local police, educators, the state's attorney's office and Junction Inc., a Westminster-based drug abuse treatment and prevention center.Activists who have formed Residents Against Drugs (RAD), a citizen organization that lobbied Wednesday in Annapolis for tougher drug laws, complain that police aren't doing enough to keep drugs out of the county and that, too often, juvenile offenders are given a slap on the wrist and allowed to return to school.

Juvenile offenders who have been ordered to pay restitution may soon get a chance to earn the money to pay back their victims.A program known as Earn-It will provide jobs to nonviolent juveniles, said Harry W. Langmead, the state Department of Juvenile Services' assistant secretary for field services.The program that will be unveiled Oct. 9 to Carroll County business leaders will be a model for the state, he said.The cost in Carroll, to be paid by the Juvenile Services Department, will be about $35,000 annually, he said.

Juvenile offenders who have been ordered to pay restitution may soon get a chance to earn the money to pay back their victims.A program known as Earn-It will provide jobs to nonviolent juveniles, said Harry W. Langmead, the state Department of Juvenile Services' assistant secretary for field services. The program that will be unveiled Oct. 9 to Carroll County business leaders will be a model for the state, he said.The cost in Carroll, to be paid by the juvenile services department, will be about $35,000 annually, he said.