HOUSE GOP SNEAKS BY BILL PUTTING KIDS IN ADULT JAILS

WASHINGTON CAN be a place of monumental hypocrisy. At one end of
Pennsylvania Avenue, in the White House, ``sexual relations'' doesn't mean
sexual relations. At the other end, in Congress, ``full disclosure'' means
anything but. Last week, House Republicans released President Clinton's
videotaped grand jury testimony in the interest of full disclosure. At the
same time, the Republicans smuggled through the most controversial and
punitive juvenile crime bill in 25 years. The bill would jail kids, even
those arrested for petty acts like curfew violation and loitering,
alongside adult offenders, and it would compel states to lower the age by
which kids could be tried as adults to 14. Under the bill, states would
have to spend billions building juvenile detention centers they don't need,
while paying for a complicated juvenile tracking system many don't want.

Kids in adult jails and prisons are five times more likely to be sexually
assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by staff, and eight times more
likely to commit suicide than kids in juvenile institutions. When they are
eventually released, they get rearrested more quickly, more often and for
more violent offenses, than kids in the juvenile justice system.

For the last year-and-a-half, a coalition of police organizations, district
attorneys, criminologists and child welfare groups have urged House and
Senate Republicans to change course, arguing that putting kids in jails
with adults is a nightmare.

More than 100 amendments were awaiting the bill in the Senate. But in a
parliamentary sleight of hand, during a time when the nation was consumed
with the Lewinsky affair, House Republicans attached the juvenile crime
legislation to a bill to fund the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children, a popular bipartisan bill. There was no mention of the juvenile
crime bill on the calendar when the bill was moved on Primary Day, as
dozens of members were in their districts campaigning. ``We are trying to
circumvent the proper process,'' objected Representative Patrick Kennedy,
D-R.I., in his floor speech. ``The U.S. Senate will not even take up this
draconian bill, a bill that would put 14-year-old children in the same
prisons as an adult criminal. They are not taking this bill up because they
know it is barbaric.''

At the end of the day, a bill that had been hotly contested in the Senate
for the past 14 months was joined to an unrelated bill, effectively
stifling all debate and blocking amendments. The bill will now be dealt
with in conference committee. Senators will only be able to vote yes or no
on the final bill.

The fingerprints of Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, are all over this one.
Now, Hatch will be able to pass a bill that was too controversial to
survive full Senate scrutiny. He might even add some loonier provisions
while the bill is in committee. If the bill would really keep our kids and
communities safe, the Republicans wouldn't have had to smuggle it through
the back door. But what the Juvenile Crime Bill really achieves is the
short-term, cynical goal of letting the Republicans look tough on crime in
an election year. If passed, it certainly won't make our country any safer,
but it will make us far less humane.

Vincent Schiraldi is the director of the Justice Policy Institute, a
research and public policy organization based in Washington, D.C.

1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A21

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski