Rural areas are having trouble with juvenile crime because of understaffed police and sheriff's departments and burdensome federal rules, local and state officials told a Senate panel Tuesday.
Police in LaFollette, Tenn., ignore juvenile crime "as often as they can until it becomes a most serious matter," Police Chief Steve Carson told the Judiciary Committee's youth violence subcommittee.Arresting a juvenile can tie up an officer for several hours while more worrisome criminals are causing trouble elsewhere, he said.
The Gillette, Wyo., sheriff's department sometimes can give only citations to youths under the influence of alcohol and then release them. "The officers are too busy now to take the kids home," said Sheriff Byron Oedekoven.
Congress is trying to decide whether to lessen federal requirements on states receiving juvenile justice grants. Wyoming already has stopped accepting the federal grant because officials said they couldn't comply with all the rules.
One federal requirement that causes problems particularly in rural areas, which tend to have small police forces and jails, is keeping juveniles and adults separated at all times "by sight and sound." That includes separation while detained in police cruisers.
Tiny LaFollette, Tenn. - population 7,192 - tries to keep three police officers on patrol at all times, Carson said, so sidelining one to "babysit" a juvenile offender while searching for his or her parents can immobilize one-third of the city's police force.
Law officers said they want more flexibility in dealing with young offenders.
For example, under federal rules, jailers who deal with adult prisoners early in their shift cannot deal with juvenile offenders during the rest of the shift. Separate jailers are required.
Wisconsin got an exemption from this rule, but it took four years to get it, said state official Ray Luick. Colorado got an exemption in about two months.
Another rule says adults and youths cannot be taken down jail corridors at the same time and cannot be kept in cells where they can hear or see one another.
"If we make a mistake with sight and sound separation, children can be killed," said William Woodward of Denver, criminal justice division director in Colorado's Department of Public Safety.
To help detain juvenile offenders in rural Colorado, police and sheriff's departments have received help through government social service agencies or privately run "safe houses." Other states could do the same, Woodward said.
(Richard Powelson is Washington correspondent for The News-Sentinel in Knoxville, Tenn.)