PREVENTION, NOT PRISON

CALIFORNIANS who felt the state wasn't doing enough to crack down on teen
criminals can rest easy. With the passage of Proposition 21 last month,
California has the toughest juvenile crime law in the country. We'll soon be
running out of room to lock up all those bad kids.

But Prop. 21, which imposes stiffer penalties on kids and makes it easier to
prosecute them in adult court, is not going to solve our juvenile crime
problem. It's not going to prevent kids from getting in trouble. Unless the
state makes a serious effort to reach kids before they wind up in court,
we'll merely continue to produce an endless supply of young offenders to
fill up all those new prisons -- where they'll harden into career criminals.

We opposed Prop. 21 as unnecessarily draconian. Even without it, California
locks up more kids than any other state. We also thought it was unwise to
give up on so many young offenders and take away the power of judges to
decide who can be rehabilitated and who can't.

Sixty percent of the voters statewide and 56 percent of voters in Santa
Clara County disagreed with us. Californians apparently are willing to spend
the $400 million a year the Legislative Analyst estimates it will cost to
lock up more kids under Prop. 21, in addition to the estimated $750 million
needed to build more prisons to hold them.

But are Californians willing to spend as much to keep kids from committing
crime, to keep them in school and help them find jobs? Surely it's in our
best interest to raise a generation of taxpayers, not criminals.

Youth crime prevention bills have not fared well in Sacramento lately. Last
year, the Legislature passed a juvenile crime bill that included both
prevention and tough enforcement measures, but the governor took out most of
the prevention money before he signed it. Another bill that would have
created a youth violence prevention authority languished.

This year Assemblyman Tony Cardenas has introduced AB 1913, a wish list of
prevention programs with a price tag of $450 million. It would provide money
to local law enforcement and school districts for gang diversion, truancy
abatement, programs for at-risk kids, programs for troubled girls --
programs with successful track records.

Does AB 1913 have a prayer of passing? Youth advocates are not hopeful.

So far it has survived the public safety committee. It has support from
Democrats and some Republicans, as well as law enforcement groups, child
advocates and Latino groups. It might well pass the Legislature in a
somewhat reduced form.

Advocates and legislators say the real stumbling block is Gov. Gray Davis.
He has proposed spending $25 million for school safety and about $37 million
for delinquency prevention, but that's a long way from the $450 million
proposed in AB 1913. He hasn't taken a position on the bill. His
spokesperson says he'll analyze it to see how it fits with his priorities.

The voters who passed Prop. 21 have said that locking up juvenile offenders
is a priority. But polls show that Californians favor putting money into
prevention, too.

The state can afford to do both. The governor and the Legislature must not
miss this opportunity to attack juvenile crime from both directions.