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Show Judges, get tough on juvenile oriminals I hear conservative Republicans pitching the idea of "home confinement" con-finement" in lieu of tax-supported imprisonment. I hear liberal Democrats mouth platitudes about decreasing youth crime through school-based "self-esteem" programs. pro-grams. I read of a Salt Lake judge sentencing a 15-year-old murderer to only one year in jail on condition that the kid write a monthly book report. Fl Cyclops by Brian Gray the neighborhood." "I'd always wanted to own one," he laughed. "But when I was younger, I thought of family considerations con-siderations and the fact that it just wasn't practical. Then last summer it dawned on me that I should be enjoying en-joying my later years. So I brought the car, pulled down the rag top, and let the wind rustle through my hair-what's left of it." But three months later, the car vanished faster than his hair. One evening he found the car vandalized. vandaliz-ed. And soon, he couldn't even find his car. Between midnight and 7 a.m. on a January night, thieves had slit the rag top, opened the car trunk, and hot-wired the sports car. All that was left was a gruesome-looking gruesome-looking hunting knife. He called the police who not only commiserated but also offered him some startling news. They'd find the car, they said, because they knew the identity of the thieves. "These guys steal cars a couple of times every week,' said the officer. offi-cer. "We've caught them red-handed red-handed but it doesn't do any good. They just laugh at us, knowing full well they'll go to juvenile court and get another round of probation. As tar as the criminal justice system goes, car theft isn't considered a violent crime. " The policeman was right. The sports car was found several blocks away. Following a brief joy ride, the thieves had vandalized the car w with a large boulder. Estimated damage: $4,000. Estimated jail time: None. "Listen, our hands are tied in these cases because the thieves are juveniles," said the officer. "Actually, I'd like to get these kids in a dark alley, but if I did I'd get sued for police brutality. The chop-shop chop-shop owners know this, too. They'll hire kids to steal cars and pay them for the stolen parts. The kids know they are safe because of their age. At the worst, they can get some home-confinement sentence. At the best, they'll get probation and be asked to attend school. Soon, they'll be out stealing cars againand we'll be filling out more paperwork." The 76-year-old man sympathized sympathiz-ed with the policeman. He also felt angry. "It's amazing that the police know these lads and where they live, but they can't stop them. As far as I'm concerned, the car theft was a violent crime. Kids who carry around hunting knives are violent. It was an act of violence when these punks took a boulder and smashed in my dashboard. These kids don't need counseling. They need a good stiff prison sentence." Some judges agree. The same day that the Salt Lake judge asked the 15 -year-old murderer to write a book report, a judge in T acorn a. Wash, ordered a 16-year-old killer of a convenience store clerk to spend the rest of his life in a federal prison. The boy had murdered the clerk for $80 and a pack of cigarettes. ciga-rettes. But his life of crime had begun several years earlier. He had been booked twice for stealing cars. So I can't support the Republican blabber about home confinement Neither can I stomach the liberal clamor of offering self-esteem courses to mean-spirited humans. What I can support are judges who understand why we built prisons and jails in the first place. And what if a "get-tough on crime" policy ends up filling the jail to maximum capacity? Don't worry. Like Jay Leno says on the potato chip commer-cial,"We'll commer-cial,"We'll make more." And then I think of the 76-year-old man, a recent victim of teen-age cruelty. His story is a common one, with similar incidents occurring daily dai-ly along the Wasatch Front. Two years following his wife's death, the man decided to "do something I'd always wanted to do." He bought himself a shiny new sports car. He was the talk of |