07-15-2007, 08:05 PM
THEY COMMIT ADULT CRIME,BUT DO NO TIME.HERE IS FLORIDA NEW LAWYERS,DOCTORS TEACHERS ETC.THIS FROM A ORLANDO PAPER.
Cops, prosecutors and judges are meeting today in Orlando to tell state officials that Florida's juvenile-justice system is broken. What local officials want is money to build juvenile prisons, where youths can be held for years, not just days. To demonstrate how juvenile offenders impact the soaring crime rate, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar has compiled a stack of files on his worst cases -- 190 defendants, 88 of whom are charged with murder. Each had a dozen to more than 30 arrests before turning 18 years old. One of them, Leondre Kindred, 19, was charged Feb. 10 with gunning down a neighbor in Orlando's Willow Bend Apartments. He had 11 previous arrests, starting at age 14. "We're spinning our wheels. We're wasting taxpayers' money by re-arresting these kids," Orange County Undersheriff Malone Stewart said Monday. Crime is the focus of the four-day Orlando-Area Juvenile Delinquency Issues Roundtable hosted by the state Department of Juvenile Justice. This morning's two-hour meeting at the Orange County school-district headquarters is closed to the public. But Orange Circuit Judge Tony Johnson, a scheduled participant, offered comments Monday that give a taste of what is likely to be said. "It's a train wreck," Johnson said. "This system does not provide a meaningful response to the misbehaviors of children, which results in encouraging continued misbehavior." Under the state's adult system, anyone caught with a gun in the commission of a crime faces a mandatory sentence of 10 years, 20 years or life in prison. Under the juvenile system, the first gun offense carries up to three days in juvenile detention while subsequent gun charges carry up to 15 days. Police officers and deputies voice frustrations similar to the judge's. "There are absolutely no consequences for anything they do," Orlando police Detective Matt Deem said. "It's absolutely not unusual for me to be involved with 13- and 14-year-olds . . . . And if it's broken at 13, you're not going to be able to fix it. It's already too late." Some of the discussions will inevitably touch on issues of race, poverty and parenting. Lamar's 190 case files comprise 126 black males, six black females, 36 Hispanic males, 14 white males, seven white females and one Asian male. Local law-enforcement agencies contacted by the Orlando Sentinel offered numerous examples of young criminals plaguing their cities and towns -- none of whom made Lamar's list. One of them, Jestin Cleveland, 17, was arrested last week after pulling a gun on two Orange County deputy sheriffs who broke up what they suspected was a drug deal, records show. "He said, 'What are you going to do? I'm still a kid,' " sheriff's Cpl. Dave Spall said. "Unfortunately, I didn't have a comeback." The arrest was Cleveland's fourth on a gun charge. "He almost forced us into a gunbattle. Once he pulls [a gun] from his waistband, we don't have to wait for him to point it at us," Spall said. "Someone like Jestin has the potential to turn deadly." In Apopka, Officer Kim Walsh spoke of a 15-year-old boy who as of late Friday had been arrested 19 times by her department for burglaries, robberies and car thefts. First arrested at age 8, he has numerous arrests by other departments. "The dam is going to bust," said Winter Garden police Lt. Jon Johnson, speaking of the vast number of cases handled by the state's juvenile-justice system. Seventeen-year-old Jamal Bolden graduated to adult prison last year. The Orlando teen is growing up at the Marion Correctional Institution in Lowell. He'll be 40 when he becomes a free man. His first arrest -- at age 10 -- was a battery on a school employee: biting and hitting a teacher at Orange County's Shingle Creek Elementary. From December 2004 to July 2005, multiple arrests for drugs, burglary and stealing a truck earned him sentences to "secure detention" programs, but beds were not available. He was still waiting for a space when he shot an Orlando man during a drug deal on July 18, 2005. The gun initially misfired, but Bolden squeezed the trigger again and the bullet pierced the man's left leg. Orlando police later found Bolden sleeping on a friend's bed. The gun was under the mattress, according to an arrest report. He was 15 at the time. A jury found him guilty of attempted second-degree murder. On Jan. 19, 2006, the teenager was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His spot in the Department of Juvenile Justice detention program went to another kid. The juvenile system "coddles, slaps the wrist and too often rapidly returns the juvenile" to prey again on the community, Lamar wrote Gov. Charlie Crist last winter. DJJ Secretary Walter McNeil is hoping the round-table discussions he is conducting will help find ways to improve the system. He and his aides hear the criticism from those on the front lines and know the situation needs to get better. "The department is trying . . . to get a handle on things," DJJ spokeswoman Kimberly Griffin said. "We realize we can't do it in a vacuum." Henry Pierson Curtis can be reached at hcurtis@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5257. Sarah Lundy can be reached at 407-420-6218 or slundy@orlandosentinel.com.
Keywords:'train wreck', broken system, crime
July 6, 2007
Cops, prosecutors and judges are meeting today in Orlando to tell state officials that Florida's juvenile-justice system is broken. What local officials want is money to build juvenile prisons, where youths can be held for years, not just days. To demonstrate how juvenile offenders impact the soaring crime rate, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar has compiled a stack of files on his worst cases -- 190 defendants, 88 of whom are charged with murder. Each had a dozen to more than 30 arrests before turning 18 years old. One of them, Leondre Kindred, 19, was charged Feb. 10 with gunning down a neighbor in Orlando's Willow Bend Apartments. He had 11 previous arrests, starting at age 14. "We're spinning our wheels. We're wasting taxpayers' money by re-arresting these kids," Orange County Undersheriff Malone Stewart said Monday. Crime is the focus of the four-day Orlando-Area Juvenile Delinquency Issues Roundtable hosted by the state Department of Juvenile Justice. This morning's two-hour meeting at the Orange County school-district headquarters is closed to the public. But Orange Circuit Judge Tony Johnson, a scheduled participant, offered comments Monday that give a taste of what is likely to be said. "It's a train wreck," Johnson said. "This system does not provide a meaningful response to the misbehaviors of children, which results in encouraging continued misbehavior." Under the state's adult system, anyone caught with a gun in the commission of a crime faces a mandatory sentence of 10 years, 20 years or life in prison. Under the juvenile system, the first gun offense carries up to three days in juvenile detention while subsequent gun charges carry up to 15 days. Police officers and deputies voice frustrations similar to the judge's. "There are absolutely no consequences for anything they do," Orlando police Detective Matt Deem said. "It's absolutely not unusual for me to be involved with 13- and 14-year-olds . . . . And if it's broken at 13, you're not going to be able to fix it. It's already too late." Some of the discussions will inevitably touch on issues of race, poverty and parenting. Lamar's 190 case files comprise 126 black males, six black females, 36 Hispanic males, 14 white males, seven white females and one Asian male. Local law-enforcement agencies contacted by the Orlando Sentinel offered numerous examples of young criminals plaguing their cities and towns -- none of whom made Lamar's list. One of them, Jestin Cleveland, 17, was arrested last week after pulling a gun on two Orange County deputy sheriffs who broke up what they suspected was a drug deal, records show. "He said, 'What are you going to do? I'm still a kid,' " sheriff's Cpl. Dave Spall said. "Unfortunately, I didn't have a comeback." The arrest was Cleveland's fourth on a gun charge. "He almost forced us into a gunbattle. Once he pulls [a gun] from his waistband, we don't have to wait for him to point it at us," Spall said. "Someone like Jestin has the potential to turn deadly." In Apopka, Officer Kim Walsh spoke of a 15-year-old boy who as of late Friday had been arrested 19 times by her department for burglaries, robberies and car thefts. First arrested at age 8, he has numerous arrests by other departments. "The dam is going to bust," said Winter Garden police Lt. Jon Johnson, speaking of the vast number of cases handled by the state's juvenile-justice system. Seventeen-year-old Jamal Bolden graduated to adult prison last year. The Orlando teen is growing up at the Marion Correctional Institution in Lowell. He'll be 40 when he becomes a free man. His first arrest -- at age 10 -- was a battery on a school employee: biting and hitting a teacher at Orange County's Shingle Creek Elementary. From December 2004 to July 2005, multiple arrests for drugs, burglary and stealing a truck earned him sentences to "secure detention" programs, but beds were not available. He was still waiting for a space when he shot an Orlando man during a drug deal on July 18, 2005. The gun initially misfired, but Bolden squeezed the trigger again and the bullet pierced the man's left leg. Orlando police later found Bolden sleeping on a friend's bed. The gun was under the mattress, according to an arrest report. He was 15 at the time. A jury found him guilty of attempted second-degree murder. On Jan. 19, 2006, the teenager was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His spot in the Department of Juvenile Justice detention program went to another kid. The juvenile system "coddles, slaps the wrist and too often rapidly returns the juvenile" to prey again on the community, Lamar wrote Gov. Charlie Crist last winter. DJJ Secretary Walter McNeil is hoping the round-table discussions he is conducting will help find ways to improve the system. He and his aides hear the criticism from those on the front lines and know the situation needs to get better. "The department is trying . . . to get a handle on things," DJJ spokeswoman Kimberly Griffin said. "We realize we can't do it in a vacuum." Henry Pierson Curtis can be reached at hcurtis@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5257. Sarah Lundy can be reached at 407-420-6218 or slundy@orlandosentinel.com.
Keywords:'train wreck', broken system, crime
July 6, 2007