MISSOURI WATCH: SUFFERING THE YOUNG THUGS

"We're admonished to 'suffer the little children,' but they're the ones causing the suffering." -- A Missouri legislator.

When Missourians read almost daily some of the criminal acts being committed on their streets and in their neighborhoods by young boys no older than 10 or 12, it isn't difficult to agree with the very angry member of the General Assembly. It is true: Young boys, sometimes armed with guns, are causing a shockingly high percentage of the crimes in our state, particularly in Missouri's two urban areas which happen to be among the five most dangerous cities in America.

Reflecting the anger of their constituents, legislators in Jefferson City are determined to amend existing statutes that will change the way our courts deal with juveniles charged with major crimes. The subject, when mentioned in Gov. Mel Carnahan's State of the State address, drew applause when he called for administering justice on young children with a severity previously reserved for adults.

And it is safe to predict that this year's legislative session will produce a change, perhaps long needed, in the way law enforcement officers and criminal court judges deal with young children who are barely old enough to join the Boy Scouts. A popular statehouse saying goes something like this: "If they're old enough to do a crime, they're old enough to do the time." And they probably will, given the mood in the capitol's corridors.

By certifying juveniles as adults after their arrest for a serious crime, legislators will overturn passage of a major reform bill that was enacted more than 30 years ago. That sweeping legislation, authored by a St. Louis judges named Noah Weinstein, called for a more "enlightened" view in dealing with juvenile delinquents, as they were called a few years before 12-year-olds started gunning down people on the streets with guns acquired from selling illegal drugs.

I recall quarreling with the good judge about his far-reaching proposals, arguing that he was being too soft on young children who were getting in trouble with the law. As I recall, Judge Weinstein had some choice words in describing my antiquated view that criminals, regardless of age, didn't deserve special treatment.

I don't cite this argument to validate my earlier beliefs, because the Weinstein law did provide a way for the successful rehabilitation of many boys and girls who were only momentarily engaged in breaking the law. I cite it because it illustrates the changing ways in which the public responds to disturbing social and political problems of the day. Judge Weinstein's law sailed through the General Assembly with barely a murmur of protest.Now the proposed repudiation of that statute will no doubt clear the General Assembly with the same ease. What was once hailed as reform is now seen as detrimental public policy.

It isn't difficult to predict that Missouri will soon treat young children who have committed serious crimes as if they were adults, and we will begin to change the judicial system of the state to comply with this revision. We also will begin spending untold millions of dollars to house these young criminals, and then society will sit back and wait for the improvements. There will no doubt be some, but we hope few will hold their breath until such a millennium arrives.

Judge Weinstein was right, at least in one respect. We won't change criminal behavior among children, who should still be playing football or basketball on a vacant lot, until we change the environment in which they live. We won't correct criminal behavior until we correct the dysfunctional homes from which these children come. We can't transfer young criminals into potential civic leaders until we insist that their parents assume more responsibility for the home life of their children.

Longer sentences are good. Prisons are necessary. But neither will magically transform those we seek to change. Missouri's children are suffering, but their pain will not go away until we identify, and then correct, the causes. The real criminals are parents who do not or will not be parents.

~Jack Stapleton is a Kennett columnist who keeps tabs of state government in Jefferson City.