CRIME HITS LOWEST RATE IN YEARS

TAMPA - The good news is that a 6.4 percent drop in the crime rate suggests
Florida has become a safer place to live. The crime rate is at its lowest in
two decades.

A drastic jump in teen arrests for drug use in Florida doesn't surprise Bill
Janes.

All the indicators that point to an increase are up, said the executive
director of a private Tampa agency that provides substance abuse services to
children and adults.

Juvenile smoking. School absenteeism. Tardiness.

``The `Just Say No' message has been lost on kids in the 1990s,'' said Janes
of the Drug Abuse Comprehensive Coordinating Office.

While the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's 1998 annual crime report
showed the lowest crime rate in two decades, it cradled sobering news about
Florida's youths.

The overall crime rate dropped 6.4 percent from 1997. Violent crimes,
including murder, rape and robbery, fell statewide by 9.2 percent from 1997,
although regionally the results are mixed. The number of arrests jumped
statewide, increasing 23 percent since 1994.

``Those numbers represent real people, real misery,'' said Tim Moore, FDLE
commissioner. ``Real loss of quality of life, real pain and suffering.''

Barbara and Walter Cordero of Tampa are two of those people. The Corderos'
17-year-old son, Nicholas, was beaten to death at the family's apartment
complex swimming pool in May 1998. His killer was sentenced to life in
prison.

``I don't see it and I don't feel it,'' Barbara Cordero said of the drop in
crime last year. ``We don't feel safe.''

Nowhere were the statistics more staggering than in arrests for juvenile
drug offenses. Between 1994 and 1998, the number of boys and young men
arrested on drug offenses increased more than 52 percent, to 12,783. For
girls and young women, the number soared 102 percent, up from 865 arrests in
1994 to 1,753 in 1998.

``While some would interpret this surge in arrests as good news, I think the
real story here is that we are failing to intervene early enough in the
lives of our children,'' said Jack Levine, president of the Center for
Florida's Children in Tallahassee.

``There is a vaccine against drug abuse, and it's called hope,'' Levine
said. ``The more kids get a sense that they have a future, the less likely
they will take risks, damage their own selves and hurt others.''

Levine criticizes legislators and policy-makers for focusing on making new,
stronger laws and building more prisons and detention centers. The
emphasis, instead, should have been on prevention, he said.

John Daigle, head of the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association in
Tallahassee, said the state Legislature two years ago shaved $2 million from
the $45 million set aside for juvenile substance abuse treatment. Right now,
he said, only about 20 percent of adolescents needing treatment get it.

This year, Daigle said, politicians gave more money to treatment programs.

``I think that's the good news in all of this,'' he said. ``If we want to
keep kids out of the juvenile justice system, we must continue to increase
the funding for substance abuse treatment.''

Richard Brown, co-director of the Agency for Community Treatment Services in
Tampa, said alcohol is the most prevalent drug abused by youngsters. He and
others point to marijuana and cocaine as readily available.

``Teenagers today have access to any drug they want,'' said Levine.

``They need only about an hour to get it. The idea that we are solving the
problem by stopping the supply is blatantly absurd.

``The only way to solve this problem is by reducing the demand.''