Juvenile Crime Prevention Needed

As one of the Orange County organizations alluded to in your Dec. 26 editorial, “Getting Tough Isn’t the Only Answer to Juvenile Crime,” the Orange County Bar Foundation strongly supports your view that programs targeting juvenile crime prevention should be adopted statewide and should be assured a reliable source of funds.

The foundation’s nationally acclaimed Shortstop Program, its Hispanic counterpart Programa Shortstop, and our Peer Court and gang violence suppression programs focus on early intervention so that juveniles at risk or who have committed a first violation receive education, counseling and encouragement to get back on track.

Shortstop, entering its 17th year, and Programa Shortstop, entering its ninth year, have combined to serve more than 12,000 people--young offenders and their families. Yet funding constraints allow the programs to serve just 15% of the juvenile offenders who would be eligible.

Why are these prevention programs and programs like them deserving of statewide replication and funding? First, they are remarkably effective for the youth and families lucky enough to be selected to participate. County probation officials found a high success rate--92% of those in the Shortstop and 79% of those in Programa Shortstop had no further legal problems within a year after graduating.

Second, they are cost effective. Prosecution and incarceration are expensive. It costs $500 per family enrolled in Shortstop as compared to $3,650 a year to monitor a juvenile on probation, $27,375 a year to keep a juvenile in Juvenile Hall and $32,850 to incarcerate a juvenile with the California Youth Authority.

In the “three strikes” era of justice, the ounce of prevention theory is a tough sell to lawmakers. Realizing this, the foundation has embarked on an aggressive private fund-raising effort to ensure the survival of its valuable programs. We also hope that 1997 will be the year that Sacramento lawmakers lend their support to juvenile crime prevention programs.

ROBERT J. WHALEN

President

Orange County Bar Foundation

Irvine