TV Reviews : Examining Complex Issues of Fear, Violence

While crime inundates KNBC-TV Channel 4’s local news hours, the station in all its wisdom programs useful shows like “Growing Up Scared” and “Victory Over Violence” at the wonderfully convenient hours of noon and 7 p.m. on a Saturday.

In “Growing Up Scared,” about ways for parents to help their kids contend with violence, host Teri Garr forever reminisces about her innocent childhood, but hers is a selective memory: The ‘60s were hardly a placid, safe time for a lot of kids.

Still, they didn’t have to see random gun violence, mass murders, reports of child abduction and their drug-addicted parents sacrifice them to the streets. A panel of concerned adults--Mark Klaas, father of abduction victim Polly Klaas; Omega Boys Club co-founder Joe Marshall; inner city pediatrician Dr. Joseph Kramer, psychologist Dr. Sarah Stein and “Children Now” founder Jim Steyer--talk in snippets about key issues, including the lures of gangs and the effects of certain kinds of TV on kids (the selected targets here are “Beavis and Butt-head,” “Ren & Stimpy” and Henry Rollins videos on MTV).

The useless sections include a vapid report on white gang members in Davenport, Iowa. The useful bits, however, include parental checklists on talking to strangers, TV-watching habits and communication.

While “Growing Up Scared” raises several complex issues without the examination they deserve, the four-part “Victory Over Violence” simply reports on apparently successful methods attacking violent crime in America--many of them having nothing to do with building more prisons or turning neighborhoods into occupied zones.

At least, you hope they’re working. Hosted by TV’s living Mt. Rushmore, Walter Cronkite, “Victory Over Violence” glibly hops from one terrific crime-stopping program to another while never explaining why they’re not being adopted elsewhere in the country.

Whether it is a South Carolina juvenile offenders program, a Texas incarceration center and school for teen criminals with innovative therapy methods, or a Tacoma, Wash., paper printing at-large criminals’ mug shots, they’re reportedly getting results. A Queens, N.Y., rape conviction program is putting rapists behind bars at a rate 27% ahead of the rest of the United States. So why is it still unique to Queens?

The solutions here are always partial, but each of them is essential. The dynamic juvenile court judge Leodis Harris, for instance, makes bad kids in his court feel shame, apologize to their victim and parents and say “sir” a lot, while he forces parents--both of them--to take responsibility. He issues such court orders as directing a wayward father to take his son fishing on a regular basis.

A country full of Judge Harrises is a wonderful idea that would be irrelevant if we had a country full of parents doing their job.

* “Growing Up Scared” airs at noon today, and Part 1 of “Victory Over Violence” airs at 7 tonight (and continues Saturdays through Sept. 24) on KNBC-TV Channel 4.