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NewsNew Head Of Juvenile Justice Emphasizes PreventionMarch 8, 2007Tampa Tribune TALLAHASSEE - The new head of Florida's Department of Juvenile Justice is drawing cheers from all corners, but so far Gov. Charlie Crist isn't giving the popular choice any new money to help right the troubled agency. Walter McNeil had 28 years of law enforcement experience before taking the job, including the past 10 as a popular police chief in Tallahassee. McNeil said there are no magic formulas for the future. "There really isn't anything … that over the last 20 years people haven't tried," he said. One challenge is political. Crist's proposed budget suggests no new positions and an $18 million cut for Juvenile Justice, compared with 324 new positions and a $186 million boost for the Department of Corrections, which deals with adult offenders. Incarceration As A Last Resort McNeil says one of his priorities will be to stress more than jail time at the agency, which handled more than 150,000 referrals in 2004-05. The figure includes many misdemeanors and minor drug charges. "We're going to be about providing a balanced approach. That is, prevention, intervention, rehabilitation, education - and incarceration obviously as a last resort," McNeil said. He mentioned a recent survey by Florida State University that found about 64 percent of the public either agreed or strongly agreed that violent juvenile offenders can be rehabilitated. "I think that's what our citizens expect," McNeil said, mentioning that sometimes children come into the criminal justice system "and they're worse off than when they were out in the community." "I think if we can avoid incarcerating our children, our kids, then our society is better served," McNeil said. Stressing prevention and intervention programs is a way to reduce crime, he said. If such efforts keep children who get into trouble from falling into a life of hard crime, the bottom line is that crime will go down. Juvenile justice rates have been falling in recent years, but the public may not realize how steep the declines have been. Murder-manslaughter referrals declined by 42 percent from 1994-95 to 2004-05; attempted murder-attempted manslaughter referrals declined by 81 percent; and the overall rate of referrals dropped from 91 per 1,000 juveniles in 2000-01 to 82 per 1,000 in 2004-05. The number of juveniles transferred to adult court peaked at 5,350 in 1995-96 and fell to 2,504 by 2004-05. Despite those encouraging trends, last year was a rough one for the agency because of the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson at a Bay County Boot Camp. "The jury's been out on boot camps since inception," said McNeil, who declined to comment specifically on the Anderson case because it is in litigation. He expressed some caution about boot camps but said it is "not necessarily our call" if a particular county decides to try that approach. "There are circumstances where a boot camp environment could work for a particular kid or group of kids," he said, adding that his agency has the responsibility of seeing that any camps are properly run. 'System Has Been Overwhelmed' McNeil gets high marks from the Florida Juvenile Justice Association, a lobbying group that represents 42 affiliated organizations statewide, said Catherine Craig-Myers, the interim director. The system needs changing, she said. "The system has been overwhelmed with the demands. Their mission was to treat kids and rehabilitate kids, and it swung way the other way. There were a lot of kids incarcerated that probably shouldn't have been," she said. The members of her group are "very very excited" about McNeil and his new focus, she said, but the Legislature "kind of starved" the agency in recent years. "This year, the Legislature has to give some more money," she said. McNeil said he's made a request for funding beyond the governor's original budget, and he's optimistic it will be approved. McNeil, who is black, said he'll also work to address concerns within the black community over racial bias in law enforcement. "Regardless of where we stand, we cannot forget or ignore the fact that race still plays a huge part in our nation, in our society. You can't take race out of the equation," he said. Reporter Kevin Begos can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or kbegos@tampatrib.com. |
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