Kids and crime

On one level, the appearance by Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnusson before the Appropriations Committee last week was just one more in a long line of appeals by department heads for a taste of the state’s $185 million surplus.

But by asking for $2.2 million in additional funding for the Youth Center, Magnusson did more than merely ask for a cut of the loot — he brought to long-overdue light the deplorable condition of Maine’s juvenile justice system and disturbing trends in juvenile crime.

Everyone who sees the South Portland facility — whether legislators, parents, teens in trouble or social-services workers — comes away with the same impression. It’s always worse than they imagined. The buildings are decrepit and overcrowded, the staff is overworked, the programs to help young offenders straighten out are woefully inadequate.

Worse still, law, sentencing trends and the demands of society all conspire to turn a bad situation into a crisis, and soon.

The most immediate concern is space — the state is likely in April to lose its juvenile custody contract with Cumberland County Jail since the county may need those 57 beds for its growing population of adult prisoners. Taking up the slack at the Youth Center won’t be easy, or cheap. About 200 juveniles now are held there, either under sentence or awaiting trial, in dorms and with staff better suited for no more than 150. Four of the nine housing units are substandard for structural, safety or security reasons, three now-unused units will have to be cobbled back into shape if the Cumberland contract is not renewed.

Furthermore, by law, the state in January will assume responsibility for all juveniles being held for trial, juveniles determined to be too dangerous to others or to themselves to remain at large. On any given day, about 30 juveniles are held for that reason in county jails, but not as of next month.

Some relief is in sight with the opening early next year of the Northern Maine Juvenile Detention Facility in Charleston, but those 34 beds won’t go very far. Already, there are concerns that judges, tired of seeing the same teen faces in court week after week on increasingly serious charges, many commited while on probation, will use the new lockup for shock sentences, jail terms of up to 30 days that forcefully bring home the consequences of crime.

The loss of space through shock sentences may be cause for concern, but the use of the technique must not be viewed as a problem. Anyone who has followed the career of one of Maine’s twenty-something criminals finally facing serious time knows the adult rap sheet most often was preceeded by a lengthy juvenile record. Any law enforcement officer can testify that juveniles all to often greet arrest with a laugh, confident that their wrist won’t even get a slap. Shock sentences, served in a rigorous “boot camp” environment, have worked for other states — the opening of the Charleston center is an opportunity for it to work in Maine.

Bad demographics

Then there’s the demographic picture, and it’s not pretty. Maine’s population is not expected grow much in the next 10 to 15 years, it’s juvenile population actually will drop slightly, yet juvenile incarcerations are on the rise and the projection is for that to continue.

The eight index crimes — the serious offenses of murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault, larceny, auto theft and arson — are on a gradual yet steady increase for all age groups. Among minors, though, the increase has not been gradual. In the last decade, juvenile arrests for violent crimes have more than doubled, to 237 last year. Arrests for drug-related offenses, now nearly 800, have increased almost four-fold.

Drugs and violence are a far cry from the petty vandalism and shoplifting that usually comes to mind when juvenile crime in Maine is the subject. And the Youth Center roster is anything but a collection of egg-throwers and headstone topplers. A snapshot of the center’s population taken on May 1 found more than half, 103, in for violent crimes — murder, manslaughter, sex offenses, robbery, assault.

These kids have committed horrible acts, but they cannot be considered beyond redemption. That’s why Magnusson’s funding request is so important. Most of the $2.2 million — about $1.8 million — is to rebuild a staff severely depleted by years of state cutbacks. The 29 counselors, one supervisor,one caseworker and three educators the commissioner requests will replace only about half the staff lost, but they will go a long way toward making the Youth Center a place where kids in trouble can get a new start, instead of just a warehouse for troublemakers.

As the revenue surplus grows, so do the funding requests flooding into the State House. Most of the requests are valid, most seek to make up for cuts inflicted during those recent bleak years. As the Legislature sorts them out, one criteria should be investment potential, whether the spending will produce a return. Given the cost to society of crime and punishment, given the extent to which juvenile crime today is merely a precursor to a life of crime, Magnusson’s proposal looks like an investment that is both sound and absolutely necessary.