JUVENILE JUSTICE PROGRAMS FACE CUTS

Bush's Budget Eliminates $250 Million In Block Grants; Advocates Object

PORTLAND, Ore. - At 15, Karl had dropped out of school, had a small-time
drug habit and was hanging out on the streets with friends who were
supporting themselves by shoplifting.

When Karl was picked up by the police for possession of marijuana, he would
normally have been taken to the Multnomah County Juvenile Detention Center,
the juvenile jail here.

But two years ago, with a $200,000 federal grant, the county started a
program under which Karl and teen-agers like him who would have been
charged with minor offenses were instead taken to a privately run center
where they received a clinical assessment, drug treatment and the chance to
remake their lives.

Karl, whose last name is not public because he is a juvenile, has become
drug-free, officials say, and he is about to earn his high school
equivalency degree. In fact, since the program began, the number of young
people being taken to the regular juvenile jail has fallen 73 percent, said
Joanne Fuller, the director of the county Department of Community Justice.

But the Portland program, known as New Avenues for Youth, is in danger of
being eliminated because of $250 million in proposed cuts in juvenile
justice programs in President Bush's budget for next year, along with $400
million in cuts in after-school programs for children at risk of falling
into delinquency.

In his State of the Union address, Bush said he would "apply the compassion
of America to the deepest problems of America" by introducing a
$150-million-a-year program to provide mentors for children with parents in
prison and disadvantaged middle school students. But when the president's
budget was made public, it also called for eliminating $250 million in
juvenile justice programs under what are known as juvenile accountability
incentive block grants.

The president's budget also proposed reducing after-school programs by $400
million. This would mean ending after-school programs for 500,000 students,
according to Department of Education figures.

Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, said a reason for the cuts in the
after-school and juvenile justice programs was that new evaluations ordered
by the Office of Management and Budget found either that they were
ineffective or that there was no way to measure their effectiveness.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who was one of the authors of the juvenile
block grant program, said he planned to fight to try to keep it intact. "I
don't think we should reduce funding for these programs," Sessions said.
"We should be increasing funding."

With young people in poor and high-crime neighborhoods, "You can't save
them all," Sessions said. "We are working at the margins." So if 10 percent
can be saved by one program and 10 percent by another, he added, "we are
making progress."