SADLY, OUR SOCIETY WANTS DJJ KIDS TO BE OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

It is the eyes that haunt: eyes that register hopelessness, despair and
distrust. They just stare at you, or beyond you, and don't seem to care or
even know how.

A dozen years of ministry in South Carolina's adult and juvenile prisons
produced vivid experiences, sometimes uplifting, often chilling, but the
eyes are burned into my soul. They are the eyes of children locked away
behind the walls of the Department of Juvenile Justice.

Gazing out at 200 pairs of eyes during a Sunday morning worship service,
you try to connect. How to describe a loving, heavenly Father when their
understanding of father is one who abandons and abuses?

The family of God? For many of these children, families fight and get drunk
and hurt. They've spent their lives fleeing their reality of family, so
their cynicism and disdain for a stranger offering a new reality are
understandable.

The children of DJJ, many as young as 10, for the most part are hidden from
society, and we like it that way. We have our own "Don't ask, don't tell"
policy. We, the people, don't ask about the conditions in juvenile prisons,
and the authorities don't tell.

Only when enterprising reporters pierce the secrecy behind the walls are we
forced to view the underbelly of the criminal justice system. It is not a
pretty sight.

No one denies that DJJ facilities are overcrowded and that children are
exposed to illicit sex, drugs and violence. The debate, such as it is, is
only about degree.

Let's put aside that part of the debate and look at indisputable facts.

Juvenile crime starts with the family. Not all DJJ kids come from bad
families, but they are the exceptions. For example, experts say children
who have a parent in prison are six times more likely than other kids to
commit crime.

A landmark 1986 study titled "Crime and Human Nature" found that crime is
not bred by race and poverty, two factors generally associated with
criminality. Instead, the study discovered a direct link between crime and
moral training.

Harvard professors James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein wrote:
"Conscience and justice are not philosophical abstractions that clutter up
the straightforward business of finding a scientific explanation for
criminality. They are a necessary part of the explanation itself."

Like so much else, government is left to clean up after bad parents and bad
choices. But government compounds the problem when it takes a simplistic
attitude toward punishment.

A study of the two long-term juvenile prisons concluded that about half of
the children incarcerated should not have been because their offenses did
not warrant imprisonment.

South Carolina locks up more children per capita than neighboring states
because prosecutors and judges make the decision to do so. Lock them up and
throw away the key is policy far too often.

So why does it matter? Consider the real-life case of William (not his real
name). Reared in a dysfunctional family, William got into trouble early in
life and was sent to a juvenile justice facility. He learned a lot: how to
fight, steal and intimidate.

William eventually completed his sentence and was released. He put his
"education" behind bars to good use. As an adult, he chose a life of crime
that intensified over the years.

One night, while high on drugs, he broke into a house and murdered a
husband and wife. He was executed several years later. I was one of the
last people to speak to him before he died.

The moral of the story: If children do not have a criminal mind when they
enter a DJJ facility, they have plenty of opportunity to get one while
they're in. And when they get out, many take it out on society.

In his book, "Justice That Restores," Prison Fellowship founder Charles
Colson documents proven alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders:

* The unconventional Choice program is intensive, supervised probation
involving daily contact between the juvenile offender and his caseworker,
who holds his charge to a discipline of strict accountability. The bottom
line: More than 80 percent of teens in the program are not rearrested. The
average cost of the Choice program is $6,000 per year per offender, a
fraction of what incarceration costs.

* States are having success in establishing restitution programs. Rather
than locking up nonviolent teens, they are required to perform community
service and, at times, work to repay the victims of their crimes.

But Colson argues that effective deterrence to juvenile crime is not
possible without intervention of role models in these young lives. This
means that average people, especially people of faith, are critical.

A study by Big Brothers/Big Sisters found that "youngsters matched with
mentors are 46 percent less likely to use drugs, 27 percent less likely to
begin drinking, one-third less likely to commit assault and half as likely
to skip school."

Communities in which both government and private citizens cooperate are
seeing results.

Dallas police achieved a 26 percent drop in juvenile crime through a gang
intervention program sponsored by 17 civic groups.

In another success story, the National Ten-Point Leadership Foundation,
started by a former street gang warlord, has matched responsible adults
with thousands of at-risk youths to spark ecumenical partnerships dedicated
to stopping crime before it happens.

In South Carolina, Colson's book should be required reading for public
officials, pastors, parents and others in leadership roles. The book
explains how others are doing it right and why we are doing it wrong.

Bob McAlister is president of McAlister Communications, a Columbia-based
public relations company. He was chief of staff for Gov. Carroll Campbell
and a volunteer for Prison Fellowship, a Christian ministry that works with
inmates, ex-inmates and their families.