TIDEWATER DETENTION HOME : CRISIS TO CRISIS
Virginian-Pilot, The (Norfolk, VA) - Sunday, December 6, 1992
Readability: 11-12 grade level (Lexile: 1240L)
Timely intervention by Acting City Manager Clarence V. Cuffee last month helped keep the lid on Tidewater Detention Home .

One hundred twenty-four young inmates were packed into a facility intended to hold 52. In the overcrowded conditions, tempers were short and tensions built to a fever pitch. To maintain order, officials had little choice but to keep residents locked in their rooms for most of the day. It was only a matter of time until serious violence erupted.

Mr. Cuffee reminded state officials in a sharply worded letter that conditions at the home had become intolerable. Not another child should be sentenced to the facility, he declared, unless a child was released to make room for him.

State officials quickly lowered the population of the home to a still-crowded, but manageable 75, partly by releasing inmates whose offenses they considered less grievous.

Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before this dangerous situation repeats itself. The number and seriousness of crimes committed by young people continues to rise, and that means the number of youngsters sentenced to detention is going up, too. In response, officials are considering a permanent screening process to help them determine which offenders will get to go home when things get too crowded and which will have to stay.

The idea of returning young offenders to the street because there is not enough space in the detention homes to accommodate them will not be popular. People are alarmed by the growing crime rate, especially among young people, and many believe the proper response to the threat is to make punishment surer and more severe.

What happens when there were more juveniles convicted of serious crimes - murder, rape, robbery and the like - than there is space to accommodate them? What will become of young criminals convicted of lesser crimes - auto theft or dope dealing, for example? Will they be given a stern tongue-lashing and put back on the street?

There are, no doubt, effective alternatives to detention in some cases. House arrest and electronic monitoring programs can help reduce the impact of the booming criminal population on existing detention facilities.

But, as Maury B. Brickhouse, supervisor of Chesapeake's Court Services Unit, put it, ``at some point, what is, is.'' At some point, young criminals either pay a price for the crimes they commit or they do not. Either way, their fate ought to have more to do with the protection of society than with how much square-footage happens to be available at detention facilities.

We're faced with three equally unappealing alternatives: (1) pack more and more inmates into existing detention facilities, creating the kind of volatile situation that the city manager acted to defuse last month; (2) release some criminals back into society, keeping only as many as there is room for, and hope that those who go free do not resume the criminal activities that got them into trouble in the first place; or (3) build more detention homes and come up with the money to pay for them.

For some time now, public policy has been determined by which of these three alternatives seemed least tolerable at the moment. The crisis just past has taken pressure off the overcrowding problem for a while, but it has not really solved anything. Pressure will begin to build immediately against releasing criminal offenders and against spending money to expand detention facilities. Before long, there will be another crisis.
Edition: FINAL
Section: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER
Page: 08
Index Terms: Editorial
Record Number: 9212040365
Copyright (c) 1992 The Virginian-Pilot