|
Parental involvement seen as key to
stem tide of juvenile crime
By Karen Middleton
karen@athensnews-courier.com
October 17, 2006
When Limestone County
Chief Probation Officer Robert Valls came on the job 16 years ago,
he and the other person in his office spent most of their time
chasing down teen runaways or truants from school.
Valls’ staff has grown to four, plus one part-time mental-health
liaison with juvenile court, but the scope of responsibilities has
grown much faster. So far this year, 206 cases stemming from 351
complaints have been sent to juvenile court.
“These are no mere traffic complaints either,” said Valls. “It’s sex
abuse, rape, domestic violence, criminal mischief with damage up
into the thousands of dollars, assault, burglary, thefts, drugs,
DUI, possession and distribution.”
Valls said he and his three staff members are having difficulty
keeping up with the recent “bombardment” of juvenile complaints. If
there is one trend he has observed since 1990 it is the decrease in
parental responsibility, which he said might be the largest
contributing factor in the spike of juvenile crime.
“I don’t have the answer—wish I did. But what I see is a total
breakdown in the family structure,” he said. “There are good kids
and bad kids, but parents are not accepting their responsibilities.
They don’t know their kids’ whereabouts , who they associate with,
have no curfews. We just have 15- and 16-year-olds who are running
amok.
Valls said his office is able to deal with the caseload because of a
working partnership with District Judge Jeanne Anderson, juvenile
prosecutor Becky Grimes, local law-enforcement and schools.
“Schools are our eyes and ears,” said Valls. “They can identify
problems early and keep excellent documentation.”
He said Boys & Girls Club also “helps tremendously.”
Since 2000, the Juvenile Probation Office has come under the
auspices of the state Administrative Office of Courts, with a
gradual phasing out of county responsibility. However, Limestone
County shares the cost of three beds in the juvenile detention
center in Tuscumbia, which comes to about $88,000 a year. Valls said
the beds stay occupied.
But removing a youth from the home and community is often the last
resort. Valls said his staff and the juvenile court try to exercise
latitude in sentencing, depending on the seriousness of the
complaint.
Disposing of juvenile cases is a “balancing act,” Grimes said.
“As a prosecutor, I must balance the interests of the victim and the
juvenile,” she said. “We try to get to them before they turn 18.”
The goal of juvenile court is to correct destructive behavior before
a young offender is old enough to enter adult courts.
“In juvenile court we use a different protocol, for instance if
they’ve ever been arrested before, if they’ve ever been to boot
camp,” said Grimes. “In sentencing, we stress accountability,
providing rehabilitation services to prevent them from re-offending
to keep them out of the adult system, and providing restitution for
the victims.”
If a young person has never been in trouble they might get off with
a lecture and be released to the custody of parents, she said.
“Or they could get probation—it all depends on the attitudes of the
juvenile and parents,” she said.
Depending on the seriousness of the crime, a juvenile might be
sentenced to an anger-management class at the Juvenile Probation
Office, drug testing, a guided “Scared Straight” tour of Limestone
Correctional Facility to include parents, or community service.
“The next step, if monitoring and restitution does not work, is boot
camp or the Department of Youth Services,” she said.
The DYS operates a boot camp in Walker County – Camp Mitnick in
Jasper. The typical stay is six weeks.
In the most extreme cases, and if a youthful offender is 16, he or
she might be treated as an adult.
“When they reach a certain age and the juvenile system has exhausted
every effort, they can be transferred to adult court,” said Grimes.
“In some cases when they are over 16, for instance first-degree
robbery, they are automatically charged as an adult.”
Grimes said, “Sometimes parents surprise you and are willing to
cooperate,” but many times they are not, she said. “The courts can
make parents a party to the case or hold them in contempt for not
going by the judge’s orders,” she said.
Too many parents are abdicating responsibility for their children to
the state, Grimes said. Low-cost help is available before matters
get that severe, she said.
“It’s frustrating to get a call from parents saying they’ve got a
10-year-old who ‘won’t mind me’ and they want to send him to boot
camp,” said Valls. “Well, it just doesn’t work that way.”
Valls encourages parents who are having difficulties with their
children to sign up for a parenting class that his office has
offered for the past 10 years. Taught by counselor Mike Beddingfield,
the class meets every Monday night in a round-table format.
“We’ve had parents say, ‘I thought I was the only one with this
problem.’ The class teaches other ways of dealing with problems
other than hitting. Parents can call our office, we will do drug
testing at a reasonable price. That’s about the only assistance we
can give outside the courts. They can stop by, we’ll give them a
book and they can go down to the County Commission office and pay
$85.”
The fee covers as many sessions as the parents and their children
want to attend.
Valls said he has a great staff comprised of probation officers
Deborah Cain, Traci Fulks and Tara Pressnell, and court
mental-health liaison Monica Garcia, whom he said “gets to the root
of anger”
“Monica has excellent resources and the savvy to refer juveniles to
other facilities that have the expertise to deal with a problem,” he
said.
|
