Republican Rep. Dave Lindahl of Northport has a theory — born of 21 years of service with the Maine State Police in several locales — that the farther east and north you go in the State of Maine, the more respect people have for the law.

Well, most people, anyway. The three-term legislator, who retired from the state police five years ago as a sergeant, acknowledges that when it comes to the hard-core juvenile delinquent population his theory may have to go back to the drawing board.

“There is definitely a juvenile crime problem throughout the state,” Lindahl told the legislative Committee on Criminal Justice Wednesday at a hearing for his bill that would strengthen parental responsibility for juveniles. “No one says `No’ to kids anymore. Not parents, not guardians, not teachers. The courts are the last resort, and they are finding it increasingly more difficult…”

Waldo County Sheriff John Ford states the case more colorfully, a result of having had more than his fair share of dealing with brazen young hooligans who repeatedly offend the public sensibilities.

“It’s just such an act of futility to keep having to deal with these same people. The governor has to do something, because this system has gone amok. It’s time to hold kids like these accountable and throw their little asses in jail,” Ford told BDN reporter Walt Griffin in December, to the sustained applause of harried crime fighters everywhere. “These do-gooder programs are not working — at least not with these types. We can’t deal with them, and they know it. They laugh when you pick them up…”

What had the plain-speaking high sheriff so magnificently wound up was the arrest of four Waldo County juveniles with extensive criminal records after he and his deputies had raided a drug and alcohol-fueled party at Brooks. It was the same group that had thoroughly trashed several camps in Montville earlier in the year. Two of the punks had been arrested on other charges a few days before the Brooks raid, and a third was barely six hours out of an Auburn detention center.

“It’s a weekly occurrence,” Ford said. “They violate their probation, go before a judge and promise not to do it again, and one hour later they’re out running the streets.”

Lindahl’s bill, LD 1312, would amend the Juvenile Code to allow a juvenile court to order a parent to pay support for a juvenile residing in the Maine Youth Center or county jail. Juveniles found guilty of criminal mischief would be ordered to write a letter of apology to the victim, as well as make restitution. And adults who intentionally contribute to continued juvenile delinquency could be criminally charged. Other bills before the committee would establish a military-style boot camp as “shock incarceration” for repeat juvenile offenders; make habitual truancy a crime; and make it possible to charge juveniles with any so-called “adult” crime.

I thought it would be great sport to ring up the sheriff to ask him if his opinion of the allegedly sorry state of juvenile justice here in Hooterville still holds.

“You bet,” he replied. “If anything, things are worse. The whole system has just gone overboard. I’m not talking about the average 15-to-17-year old juvenile who might come in once or twice and then straighten out. It’s the repeat offenders, who we see six and seven times. They’re getting more brazen every day, to the point where they are now going out and training new recruits in how to beat the system…”

Because of serious funding cuts, the Maine Youth Center now accepts only the worst juvenile offenders. Community-based juvenile services were supposed to have replaced the lost access last summer, “but all we’ve received from the state so far is lots of lip service,” Ford said Thursday.

The Maine Department of Corrections opposes two of the bills heard Wednesday, including the boot-camp proposition which the Maine Civil Liberties Union and the Maine Council of Churches aren’t too keen on, either. “It’s no secret that some people in the Department of Corrections are on the opposite ends of the spectrum from me on this thing,” Ford explained. “They have seemed more concerned with how the juvenile offender feels than with what he may have done.”

Ironically, salvation may ultimately lie with the juveniles themselves. Ford claims that when law officers go into the schools and ask the kids how the juvenile delinquent problem should be handled they invariably reply that people who repeatedly break the law should be put in jail. “The kids are smarter than the grownups,” he said.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport.